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ON  THE 
GORILLA  TRAIL 


By  MARY  HASTINGS  BRADLEY 

Novels 

THE  INNOCENT  ADVENTURESS 

THE  FORTIETH  DOOR 

THE  WINE  OF  ASTONISHMENT 

THE  PALACE  OF  DARKENED 
WINDOWS 

THE  SPLENDID  CHANCE 
THE  FAVOR  OF  KINGS 

Travel 

ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
New  York  London 


THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF  KARISIMBI 


ON  THE 

GORILLA  TRAIL 


BY 

MARY  HASTINGS  BRADLEY 


AUTHOR  OF 

'THE  PALACE  OF  DARKENED  WINDOWS," 
"THE  FOBTIETH  DOOB,"  ETC. 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  ::  LONDON  ::  MCMXXIII 


COPYRIGHT,    1922,  BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Copyright.  1922.  by  M»ry  Hastings  Bradley 
Photographs  Copyrighted  by  Carl  E.  Akeley  and  Mary  Hastings  Bradley 

PRINTED  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES  OF  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    OFF  TO  AFRICA ..  1 

II.    THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 11 

III.  THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 25 

IV.  IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 38 

V.    ON  SAFARI 57 

VI.    THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 71 

VII.    THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 98 

VIII.    THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF  KARISIMBI       .      .      .      .  110 

IX.    A  GORILLA  BAND 119 

X.    THE  PYGMIES  COME  TO  CAMP 136 

XI.    A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 145 

XII.    THE  THREE-STONE  KITCHEN 157 

XIII.  THE  LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 168 

XIV.  LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 185 

XV.    ELEPHANTS  AND  BUFFALO 199 

XVI.    SANTA  IN  THE  JUNGLE 212 

XVII.    ACROSS  UGANDA 220 

XVIII.    THE  TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA 233 

XIX.    GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 247 

XX.    LISTS  AND  EQUIPMENT,  ETC.      .....  257 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  Pago 
The  Big  Gorilla  of  Karisimbi  ....     Frontispiece 

The  Kenilworth  Castle  at  Madeira 12 

Freetown,  Sierra  Leone 12 

General  Smuts         ., 13 

Victoria  Falls — Main  Falls  from  Rock,  beyond  Livings- 
tone Island 34 

Mrs.  Bradley  at  Victoria  Falls,  The  Devil's  Cataract     .  34 
Where  Do  We  Go  from  Here?     Alice  Hastings  Bradley 

on  the  Congo 35 

Steamer  on  the  Lualaba  River 35 

Borassus  Palms  on  the  Lualaba  River 44 

Congo  Belles  Traveling 44 

Crocodile  with  Arm  and  Leg  of  Native  He  Had  Just  Eaten  45 
Gavial,  Asiatic  Species  of  Crocodile,  Caught  in  Lualaba 

River 45 

Giant  Palm  on  Tanganyika 50 

Native  Boat  on  Lake  Tanganyika 51 

The  Tree  at  Ujiji  beneath  which  Stanley  met  Livingstone  51 

Native  Market,  Usumbura,  Lake  Tanganyika     ...  54 

Native  Barmaids  at  Usumbura 64 

Porters  on  the  March 55 

Alice  on  Safari 55 

Personal  Attendants  on  the  March — Camera,  Gun  and 

Wheel 60 

Alice  and  Mablanga 60 

Alice  and  Her  Tent 61 

Porters  Waiting  Rations 61 

Rest  House  and  Chief's  House  in  the  Rusisi  Mountains     .  68 

Martha  Miller  and  Her  Elephant 68 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  Page 

Wife  of  Erstwhile  Cannibal  Chief,  Kabaka     ....  63 

A  Chief  of  the  Warundi,  Lake  Tanganyika      ....  69 

Watussi  Family  Bringing  Milk  and  Butter     ....  90 
Watussi  Girls  Making  Butter  by  Shaking  Cream  in  a 

Gourd ,     ..  90 

White  Father's  Mission  at  Nyunde 91 

Cathedral  in  Erection  at  Nyunde  .     v     •.-     .-     ...  91 

White  Sisters  at  Nyunde                 .     >-     >-     >-     .     ,.•     >.  94 

Mt.  Chaninagongo  .      .      .      .      .      r     .r     •     M      .     *  94 

Native  Fishing  in  Kivu       .      .      .     >     >     ..-     .     ,.,     ,.  95 

Flow  of  Lava  across  Lake  Kivu          .......  95 

The  Woman  with  a  Hoe     .      .      .      .     v     .      .      ,.,     ,.  100 

Our  Postman 100 

The  White  Fathers  at  Lulenga  Mission      .....  101 

Lulenga  Valley.     Mission  White  Fathers       .      .      .      .  101 

Our  Objective — the  Gorilla  Triangle 112 

Gorilla  Camp  on  Mt.  Mikeno   . 112 

Where  Gorillas  Live — the  Fairy  Forests  of  Karisimbi      .  113 

The  Big  Gorilla  of  Karisimbi  Shot  by  Herbert  E.  Bradley  113 

Mr.  Akeley  Working  on  Gorilla  Skins 120 

Guides  Removing  Flesh  from  Gorilla  Skeletons      .      .      .  120 

Gorilla  Skeletons — and  Others 121 

Gorilla    Camp — Skeletons     and    Skins    Drying — Little 

Clarence  Hanging  in  Tent 121 

In  the  Gorilla  Forests  of  Mt.  Mikeno 124 

Gorilla  Bed  and  Trail .      .  124 

Gorilla  Bed  Overhung  by  Ferns 125 

Just  before  Meeting  Gorillas — Mrs.  Bradley  and  Porters  125 

The  Peak  of  Mt.  Mikeno,  14,600  Feet 130 

Porters'  Huts  at  the  Gorilla  Camp      ......  130 

A  Glade  in  the  Bamboos 131 

Native  Cattle  in  the  Foothills  of  Mikeno 131 

Batwa  Chief  and  Wife        ,.,.,„.  140 

Dance  of  the  Batwa      ...      *      v     .      .      .      .     ..  140 

Crossing  the  Lava  Plains         T     -.      .      .      .      •      .      .  141 

A  Night  on  the  Summit 141 

riu 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  Page 

Lava  in  Eruption  in  Nyamlagira's  Crater  ....  154 
The  Fire  Pot  of  Nyamlagira — Taken  at  Night  by  Iti 

Own  Light 154 

Sunny  Jim 155 

Our  Bicycle  Boys 155 

Leo  and  the  Union  Suit 166 

The  Three-Stone  Kitchen  and  Its  Aids 166 

The  Ruchuru  River 167 

Killed  by  Lion — Grave  of  Mr.  Foster 167 

Mrs.  Bradley  and  the  Lion  That  Did  Not  Stay  Dead  .  182 

The  "Dead"  Lion  That  Roared  as  His  Picture  Was  Taken  1 82 

Topi  Staked  Out  for  Lion  Bait 183 

Natives  on  the  Ruindi  Plains 183 

One  Night's  Kill — Mr.  Bradley  with  Two  Lions  Shot  by 

Him 196 

Miss  Miller  and  Her  Lion 196 

Natives  Making  Fire  with  Fire  Sticks 197 

Ready  for  the  March 197 

The  Acacia  Is  Fantastically  Flat  Topped  ....  222 
Buying  Bark  Cloth  beneath  the  Euphorbia  or  Candelabra 

Tree 222 

The  Golden  Crested  Kavirondo  Crane 223 

Family  Scene  at  Lake  Bunyoni 223 

Waiting  for  Canoes  on  Lake  Bunyoni  ......  226 

Native  Dugouts  on  Bunyoni ..  .  .  226 

The  Tomb  of  King  Mutesa,  in  Uganda 227 

The  End  of  Safari .  ...  .  .227 

Ripon  Falls — the  Birth  of  the  Nile 250 

Alice  at  a  Ceremonial  Dance  of  the  Kikuyus  .  .  ,,  250 

Natives  Sawing  in  Nairobi  ., 251 

A  Rickshaw  at  Mombasa 251 

Giant  Baobab  Tree  at  Mombasa 254 

Good-by  to  Africa 254 

Memories 255 


ix 


ON  THE 
GORILLA  TRAIL 

CHAPTER  I 

OFF  TO  AFRICA 

AN  EXPEDITION  FOR  GORILLAS  WHICH  INCLUDES  A 
FIVE-YEAR-OLD  EXPLORER 

OUR  objective  was  a  tiny  triangle  in  the  heart  of 
Africa.  It  was  bounded  by  three  volcanic  mountains 
and  was  a  high  plateau  of  bamboo  forest,  eternally 
cold,  eternally  clouded,  eternally  rainy. 

It  was  there  that  Mr.  Akeley  was  going  to  find 
gorillas  for  a  group  for  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History  of  New  York,  and  we  were  going  with 
Mr.  Akeley  because  we  wanted  to  see  Africa,  as  well 
as  gorillas,  and  the  way  to  this  triangle  was  through 
one  of  the  loveliest  and  least  known  parts  of  the  conti- 
nent, the  Eastern  Congo.  No  Americans  had  yet  been 
in  the  country  to  which  we  were  going. 

I  had  always  wanted  to  see  Africa.  I  suppose  I  first 
thought  about  it  when,  like  all  Sunday-school  children, 
I  shouted, 

Where  Afric's  sunny  fountains 
Roll  down  their  golden  sand, 

and  wondered  if  the  life  of  a  missionary  did  not  have 
its  thrilling  compensations  in  its  intimacies  with  croco- 
diles and  cannibals. 

Photographs  copyrighted  by  Carl  E.  Akeley  and  Mary  Hastings  Bradley. 

1 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

I  know  that  Africa  first  touched  my  imagination 
when  my  great-grandfather  read  aloud  to  me  his  favorite 
book,  Stanley's  In  Darkest  Africa.  I  received  then  a 
vivid  intimation  of  Africa's  mysterious  spell,  stirring 
pictures  of  a  vast  continent  peopled  with  savages,  of 
feverish  jungles  and  mighty  rivers,  of  treacherous 
beauty  and  swift  death,  of  a  primitive  barbarism  that 
had  been  going  on  from  the  beginning  of  time,  un- 
changed and  unchanging,  living  its  own  life  through 
the  centuries,  unknown  and  untouched  by  trade  or 
civilization. 

I  made  up  my  young  mind  then  that  I  would  go  and 
see  Africa  and  that  resolution  was  kept  alive  by  our 
family  friendship  with  Mr.  Carl  E.  Akeley,  then  with 
the  Field  Museum  of  Chicago.  Mr.  Akeley  had  already 
made  one  expedition  to  Africa  and  later  he  and  Mrs. 
Akeley  went  on  two  expeditions,  and  from  that  time  we 
saw  Africa  through  the  Akeleys'  eyes. 

The  Dark  Continent  was  transformed.  It  was  Africa 
the  Beautiful,  a  land  of  wonder  and  delight,  of  wide 
plains  and  mighty  forests  and  glacier-peaked  moun- 
tains, a  world  of  tropic  splendors  roamed  by  primitive 
peoples  and  magnificent  beasts.  It  was  Mr.  Akeley's 
enthusiasm  which  inspired  Colonel  Roosevelt  to  make 
his  African  trip,  recorded  in  African  Game  Trails,  and 
that  same  year  Mr.  John  McCutcheon  of  the  Chicago 
Tribune  was  with  the  Akeleys  on  a  hunting  trip  in 
British  East,  where  he  wrote  In  Africa. 

I  used  to  stand  before  the  Fighting  Bulls  in  the  Field 
Museum,  a  pair  of  elephants  shot  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Akeley,  a  group  which  is  a  record  of  his  sculptural 

2 


OFF  TO  AFRICA 

methods  of  mounting,  and  wonder  if  I  should  ever  be 
able  to  see  an  elephant  on  its  native  heath — and  then 
live  to  remember  it.  So,  with  all  this  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, my  husband  and  I  were  delighted  that  the  gorilla 
expedition  came  at  a  time  when  we  could  arrange  to  go. 

The  delight  was  not  unanimous.  In  general  our 
announcement  was  received  by  our  friends  with  a  flat- 
tering gloom,  with  what  might  be  called  the  bedside 
manner  to  those  resolved  upon  an  untimely  end.  The 
less  solemn  and  concerned  were  frankly  facetious. 

Why  do  it  this  way,  they  wanted  to  know.  Why  not 
the  lake  or  chloroform  or  something  usual  and  imme- 
diate instead  of  taking  the  trouble  to  go  to  Africa  and 
give  ourselves  to  a  lion  for  lunch  ?  Also,  demanded  the 
merry  ones,  if  anything  did  happen,  were  we  planning 
to  ship  the  consumer  back  to  the  Zoo  so  they  could  place 
memorial  wreaths  about  its  neck  ? 

They  called  attention  to  Mr.  McCutcheon's  picture 
of  the  jolly  little  cemetery  back  of  Nairobi  with  "Killed 
by  Lion"  on  every  cross,  and  quoted  "The  bulge  was 
Algy,"  with  persistent  humor.  Especially  they  pointed 
out  that  the  gorilla  was  not  noted  for  hospitality  and 
presented  us  with  various  accounts  in  which  we  inva- 
riably came  upon  some  such  heartening  paragraph  as, 
"The  poor  brave  fellow  who  had  gone  off  alone  was  lying 
on  the  ground  in  a  pool  of  his  own  blood,  his  entrails 
torn  out,  his  gun  beside  him,  bitten  in  two  by  the 
gorilla's  teeth." 

I  admit  there  was  room  for  both  humor  and  dismay. 
Between  the  lion's  chances  for  lunch  and  ours  for  a  rug 
the  odds  were  sportingly  even.  As  to  the  gorilla,  the 

3 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

records  were  not  encouraging,  describing  the  grown 
male  as  a  demon  of  ferocity,  attacking  on  sight  with  a 
fury  few  hunters  can  withstand;  but  the  records  of  the 
gorilla  were  extremely  scarce. 

It  is  surprising  to  learn  how  little  has  been  discovered 
about  the  animal  since  Du  Chaillu  wrote  his  blood- 
curdling accounts  of  his  adventures  in  the  West  Coast 
jungles  in  1848.  A  few  recent  pamphlets,  a  few  isolated 
instances,  comprise  the  world's  authentic  information. 
There  is  no  gorilla  in  a  museum  mounted  by  a  man  who 
ever  saw  a  wild  gorilla.  Skins  have  been  bought  from 
hunters  and  collectors  and  stuffed  according  to  the  best 
available  information.  Almost  nothing  of  the  animal's 
habits  or  capacities  has  been  discovered.  As  far  as 
we  could  find  out,  only  four  true  gorillas  ever  reached 
the  United  States  alive,  three  short-lived  youngsters 
and,  in  1920,  the  famous  John  Daniels,  who  did  not 
long  survive  the  separation  from  the  English  woman 
who  had  brought  him  up. 

Mr.  Akeley  had  no  intention  of  bringing  back  a  gorilla 
alive — although  for  some  moments  he  dallied  with  the 
idea  and  I  held  an  agonized  breath,  seeing  myself  walk- 
ing the  floor  with  the  wailing  infant — but  he  wished  to 
study  the  animal  as  much  as  possible,  to  bring  back  the 
material  for  a  group,  to  make  anatomical  and  scientific 
records  of  every  kind,  and,  if  it  were  possible,  a  photo- 
graphic record,  something  that  had  never  before  been 
done.  He  was  going  equipped  with  his  own  invention, 
the  Akeley  Motion  Picture  Camera,  to  try  to  realize 
that  dream. 

Personally  Mr.  Akeley  believed  that  the  rumors  of 

4 


OFF  TO  AFRICA 

the  animal's  unreasoning  ferocity  were  exaggerated. 
He  believed  that  the  male  of  the  species  was  maligned 
and  that  unless  he  was  attacked  or  his  family  threatened 
his  intentions  were  honorable  and  unobtrusive,  and  that 
he  was  a  harmless  and  interesting  old  gentleman  who 
ought  to  be  taken  off  the  game  lists. 

And  Mr.  Akeley  proposed  to  find  out.  He  proposed, 
after  he  had  secured  his  museum  group,  to  give  the 
gorilla  every  social  opportunity  to  meet  him  halfway. 

My  husband  and  I  were  unbiased.  We  were  neither 
for  nor  against  the  gorilla.  He  might  be  as  peaceful 
as  unexploded  dynamite.  The  reputation  of  the  species 
might  be  due  entirely  to  the  irascibility  of  minority  hot- 
heads. We  were  not  going  to  take  any  position  before- 
hand, but  let  the  gorilla  show  himself  in  his  true  colors. 
Privately  I  believed  that  my  best  position  later  would  be 
behind  something  substantial, 

I  was  sustained  by  that  word  wary  which  I  found  in 
every  account  of  the  gorilla.  Wary  and  elusive  were 
his  invariably  given  characteristics.  Now  I  rather  liked 
that  in  him.  He  could  be  as  elusive  as  Peter  Pan.  I 
had  no  intention  of  frustrating  any  social  barriers  he 
wished  erected.  My  New  England  blood  could  be  as 
proudly  reserved  as  his.  He  could  rely  upon  me  not 
to  make  undue  advances. 

I  was  going  into  his  country.  I  was  trying  to  pene- 
trate his  domain  and  spy  upon  affairs  that  were  un- 
doubtedly his  own  concern,  but  I  was  not  going  to  thrust 
myself  and  what  might  be  an  uncongenial  New  World 
personality  upon  his  attention.  And  while  I  had  no 
intention  of  killing  a  gorilla  I  had  no  intention,  either, 

5 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

of  strolling  through  his  impenetrable  bamboos  without  a 
gun.  There  was  always  the  possibility  that  one  might 
be  dealing  with  the  leader  of  the  minority  hot-heads ! 

But  the  fact  that  we  were  going  to  gorilla  land  was 
no  serious  cause  for  concern.  The  difficulties  of  dis- 
covering gorilla  were  so  great  that  we  might  feel  our- 
selves fortunate  if  we  got  a  glimpse  of  them  at  all.  The 
real  concern  was  in  the  fact  that  we  were  going  to 
Africa,  as  a  friend  expressed  it,  with  a  gun  in  one  hand 
and  a  baby  in  the  other. 

Mr.  Bradley  and  I  were  taking  our  five-year-old 
daughter  Alice  with  us.  But  it  wasn't  as  mad  as  it 
sounded.  Mr.  Akeley's  experience  would  not  burden 
the  expedition  with  a  child  unless  it  were  both  safe  and 
feasible.  We  were  going  into  a  healthy  region,  up  from 
the  Cape  through  the  Belgian  Congo  to  Lake  Kivu, 
along  the  mountainous  backbone  of  Africa,  where, 
although  almost  under  the  equator,  the  altitude  would 
insure  cool  nights  and  pleasant  days. 

Alice  was  an  outdoor  child  who  loved  the  open,  and 
the  experience  would  be  an  unforgettable  part  of  her 
life.  Our  camp  would  be  comfortable  and  well  pro- 
tected, and  her  chief  danger  would  be  the  equatorial  sun 
against  which  a  helmet  and  unceasing  vigilance  could 
guard  her.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  existence 
at  home  even,  where  motors  menace  every  curb  and 
crossing,  and  where  she  could  never  for  an  instant  be 
safely  left  alone  upon  the  streets. 

It  seemed  to  us  that  the  same  unceasing  care  which 
tried  to  guard  Alice  in  Chicago  could  keep  her  safe  in 
Africa  and  that  the  change  and  outdoor  life  would  be 

6 


OFF  TO  AFRICA 

a  tremendous  benefit  to  her.  We  decided  it  only  after 
careful  study  of  every  book  of  travel  and  unending  con- 
sultation with  every  one  we  knew  who  had  been  to 
Africa;  then  we  made  up  our  minds  to  go  ahead  and 
meet  every  moment  with  thorough  care  but  not  to  invite 
apprehension.  So  our  party,  headed  by  the  most  experi- 
enced of  African  travelers,  included  the  youngest  of 
explorers. 

Once  the  decision  was  made,  the  matter  of  outfit 
was  upon  us.  Tents,  camp  equipment,  and  "chop" 
boxes  of  food  were  ordered  by  Mr.  Akeley  from  London 
firms  to  be  ready  for  shipment  when  we  arrived;  the 
various  cameras — motion  picture,  plate  and  film — and 
the  developing  apparatus  were  all  collected  here  by 
Mr.  Akeley,  and  the  guns  were  arranged  for  here.  My 
husband  and  I  each  had  rebuilt  Springfield  rifles,  30-30, 
with  hard  and  soft  nose  ammunition,  and  in  addition  my 
husband  had  the  gun  with  which  Mr.  McCutcheon  had 
slain  his  elephant,  a  .475  Jeffery. 

Ordering  by  catalogue  is  an  enticing  joy,  but  after 
that  was  done  we  were  left  to  struggle  with  the  thou- 
sand and  one  details  of  personal  things  for  the  long 
sea  voyage  as  well  as  for  the  interior.  My  lists  ranged 
from  hobnailed  shoes  and  flannel  shirts  and  khaki 
knickers  to  white  crepe  and  lace  evening  gowns.  Only 
a  woman  who  has  tried  to  estimate  the  hairpins  she  will 
need  for  months  in  the  wilds,  and  how  many  pairs  of 
stockings  and  how  many  boxes  of  colored  crayons  a 
lively  little  girl  will  use,  can  feel  for  my  state  of  mind  1 

We  outfitted  in  Chicago  during  a  spell  of  July 
weather  that  made  us  wonder  weakly  why  on  earth  we 

7 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

were  trying  to  get  any  nearer  the  equator  anyway;  we 
packed,  with  the  valiant  assistance  of  friends,  compli- 
cated trunks  for  hold  and  baggage  room  and  stateroom 
— with  the  inevitable  after-panic  lest  the  gold  slippers 
be  in  the  hold  and  hunting  trousers  appear  in  the  state- 
room!— we  bade  farewells  that  savored  almost  of  the 
eternal  and  turned  our  backs  upon  home  and  family  and 
friends  and  the  familiar  perils  of  civilization. 

We  set  sail  upon  the  Baltic  for  Liverpool  on  July  30, 
1921.  Besides  Mr.  Akeley  and  the  three  Bradleys  the 
party  included  Miss  Martha  Akeley  Miller,  Mr. 
Akeley's  secretary,  and  Miss  Priscilla  Hall  of  Chicago 
who  was  to  be  Alice's  special  guardian.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Leonard  Baldwin  of  New  York  accompanied  us  as 
far  as  London. 

We  had  a  crossing  whose  restful  calm  and  six  meals 
a  day  fortified  us  for  the  next  few  hectic  days  in  Lon- 
don, pursuing  Last  Things.  These  included  helmets 
and  spine  pads  for  the  sun,  and  Jaeger  blankets  and 
heavy  pajamas  for  the  cold  mountain  nights,  and 
mosquito  boots  for  camp  wear,  and  air-tight  cases  for 
packing,  and  a  formidable  medicine  kit;  and  our  rooms 
at  the  hotel  looked  a  collector's  paradise. 

The  Very  Last  Thing  was  a  can  presented  by  a 
thoughtful  English  officer,  received  with  hilarity  and 
later  acknowledged  with  reverent  gratefulness — a  little 
can  of  insecticide. 

London  seemed  little  changed  from  the  London  of 
before  war  days,  but  there  were  two  very  poignant  re- 
minders of  the  war — the  Cenotaph  in  Whitehall  to  the 
Glorious  Dead,  and  the  grave  of  the  Unknown  War- 

8 


OFF  TO  AFRICA 

rior  in  Westminster  Abbey.  The  service  was  just  over 
the  morning  I  went  to  the  Abbey,  and  the  dim  aisles 
were  filled  with  a  throng  that  made  its  slow  and  quiet 
way  up  to  the  high  paling  about  the  grave.  Within  the 
palings  I  saw  a  stone  slab  covered  with  wreaths  and 
little  nosegays.  Later  there  would  be  a  permanent  slab 
of  Belgian  marble  and  a  dedication  in  brass  lettering, 
but  now  in  the  dark  stone  was  the  simple  inscription: 

AN  UNKNOWN  BRITISH  SOLDIER,  KILLED  IN  WAR, 
FIGHTING  FOR  COUNTRY  AND  FOR  KING 

Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this. 

The  wreaths  of  all  nations  were  there,  with  imposing 
names,  but  the  most  touching  things  were  those  little 
nosegays  of  violets  and  pansies,  tied  sometimes  with  a 
string.  As  I  stood  there  I  saw  a  little  bunch  of  field 
flowers  put  through  the  palings  from  the  pressing  crowd 
and  I  looked  down  to  see  a  young  girl  with  country 
cheeks  and  eyes  as  blue  as  the  cornflowers  she  had 
brought.  She  was  crying. 

"It  might  be  her  brother,  you  know,"  said  the  Eng- 
lishman beside  me. 

It  was  clear  from  the  wet  eyes  of  most  of  the  women 
and  the  faces  of  the  men  that  they  were  at  the  grave 
of  son  or  father,  brother  or  husband.  The  world  moves 
quickly  and  all  too  easily  forgets,  but  these  were  the 
people  who  would  never  forget,  and  this  was  their 
Place  of  Pilgrimage. 

9 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

For  Alice,  London  consisted  of  hansom  cabs  and  the 
Zoo.  Her  ambition  to  ride  up  beside  a  cabby,  behind 
a  real  horse,  was  gratified  by  the  discovery  of  an  old- 
fashioned  four-wheeler  at  Charing  Cross  and  Alice  was 
lifted  up  to  ride  in  triumph  through  the  interesting 
streets.  All  the  motors  in  the  world  were  nothing  to 
her  beside  the  delight  of  that.  She  and  the  cabby,  as 
old-fashioned  as  his  vehicle,  agreed  perfectly. 

"  'Orses  be  the  thing,"  said  he.  "Gentlefolk  should 
'old  by  them."  He  had  a  very  poor  opinion  of  ma- 
chinery indeed.  "It's  the  undoing  of  the  'uman  race," 
he  told  us. 

At  the  Zoo  she  rode  a  donkey,  a  camel,  an  elephant, 
and  a  llama  in  preparation  for  strange  African  mounts. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

SIERRA  LEONE  AND  THE  BURNING  SAXON;  AN 
IMPRESSION  OF  GENERAL  SMUTS 

THE  West  Coast  of  Africa  has  an  ominous  ring.  It 
savors  of  jungles  and  fever  and  hot  stagnant  harbors 
to  which  the  sickly  caravans  wind  down.  .  .  .  Gold 
Coast  and  Ivory  Coast.  .  .  . 

Probably  no  one  knew  less  about  the  West  Coast 
boats  than  I  did,  and  when  we  found  that  the  West 
Coast  passage  was  the  only  one  we  could  reserve  in 
advance  from  New  York  I  made  inquiries  that  later 
filled  me  with  amusement.  Assured  that  the  trip  was 
comfortable  and  not  at  all  fatal  we  took  heart  and 
passage. 

We  sailed  from  Southampton  on  the  Kenilworth 
Castle,  Friday,  August  12,  and  our  first  discovery 
was  that  we  were  not  the  only  family  in  the  world  risk- 
ing its  young  upon  the  West  Coast.  The  decks  were 
full  of  children  and  almost  all,  we  learned,  had  been 
born  in  Africa  or  had  gone  out  at  a  tender  age  and 
were  now  returning  from  leave  at  Home. 

It  looked  as  if  all  the  African  cradles  had  not  been 
robbed  by  lions  or  emptied  by  fever.  It  also  looked — 
and  proved — extremely  social  for  young  Alice.  If  not 
the  only  child,  she  was  the  only  little  American,  and 

11 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

as  such  received  a  special  mothering  from  Ruth  Smith, 
a  sweet  little  South  African  girl. 

The  Kenilworth  Castle  proved  a  most  comfortable 
boat,  the  only  ominous  sign  being  the  information  that 
electric  fans  could  be  rented  from  the  Barber  Shop. 
But  we  never  needed  them.  We  had  a  delightful  trip, 
a  succession  of  lovely  Junelike  days,  never  too  warm 
even  when  crossing  the  equator. 

We  went  direct  to  Capetown,  a  seventeen-day  trip, 
with  one  official  stop  at  Madeira  the  fifth  day  out.  Four 
days  at  sea  is  enough  to  make  land  an  event.  We  an- 
chored before  dawn  and  came  early  on  deck — a  deck 
we  found  festooned  with  embroideries  and  invested  with 
swarthy  venders — to  look  across  blue  waves  to  Madeira, 
a  picturesque  mountain  island,  smothered  in  green, 
with  here  and  there  a  gleam  of  cream  brick  villas  and 
red  roofs.  We  went  ashore  in  small  boats  and  up 
steep  stone  steps  to  the  quay. 

Our  destination  was  a  hotel  halfway  up  the  moun- 
tain and  we  had  a  choice  of  vehicles — the  native  sledge, 
drawn  by  oxen  or  donkeys  over  the  tightly  packed  little 
stones  with  which  the  narrow  streets  are  paved,  or  a 
motor  car. 

Hunger  prevailed  over  picturesqueness,  and  we  mo- 
tored through  the  tiny  town  with  a  blaring  horn  scat- 
tering beggars  and  urchins,  and  climbed  the  steep 
mountain  to  Reid's  Palace  Hotel  where  we  break- 
fasted over  a  paradise  of  a  garden,  with  shining  views 
of  sea  and  sky.  The  breakfast  itself  deserves  honorable 
mention  and  was  our  introduction  to  the  delicious 
passion  fruit — a  fruit  the  size  of  a  lemon  with  a  hard 

12 


THE  KENILWORTH  CASTLE  AT  MADEIRA 


[page  12] 


FREETOWN,  SIERRA  LEONE 


[page  12] 


GENERAL  SMUTS 


[page  19] 


THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

rind  and  a  soft,  rosy-purple  interior,  and  it  was  served 
on  old  mahogany  that  made  one  begin  to  compute 
freight  rates. 

After  a  walk  through  one  of  the  loveliest  gardens 
imaginable — palms  and  tropic  bloom  and  high  walls 
dripping  with  flowering  climbers  and  everywhere  an 
outlook  over  the  blue  bay  far  below — we  went  down 
into  the  little  tourist-trap  of  a  town  and  compromised 
upon  embroidered  handkerchiefs,  mindful  of  African 
luggage  problems  ahead. 

It  was  that  same  day  that  the  Committee  on  Sports 
met.  Now  that  might  not  seem  a  momentous  thing  to 
record — until  you  knew  that  committee.  Inspired  by 
one  dynamic  spirit  it  arranged  field  sports,  cricket 
matches,  bridge  drives,  chess  games,  and  tournaments  of 
tennis,  shuffleboard,  deck  quoits  and  bucket  quoits, 
ladies'  singles  and  doubles,  gentlemen's  singles  and 
doubles,  and  mixed  doubles.  So  well  did  it  do  its  work 
that  no  one  ever  sat  in  peace  thereafter,  with  a  weak 
inclination  towards  a  book  or  a  pipe,  without  being 
reminded  that  he  must  now  play  off  his  tennis  with 
Major  Miller  or  that  Captain  Viney  was  ready  for  the 
finals  in  deck  quoits. 

The  day  after  Madeira  we  crossed  the  Tropic  of 
Cancer  and  wore  hats  on  the  upper,  unroofed  deck,  and 
people  began  to  talk  about  the  sun  and  I  began  to 
wonder  how  Alice  would  ever  remember  in  Africa  about 
a  helmet  on  her  curly  head. 

I  heard  the  encouraging  little  anecdote  about  the 
friend  of  Mr.  Powell's  who  had  taken  off  his  helmet  to 
wave  a  friend  good-by  and  was  dead  in  two  hours  in 

13 


ON  .THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

consequence,  and  other  anecdotes  of  even  swifter  dis- 
aster, and  I  fortified  myself  with  the  idea  of  hiring  a 
lynx-eyed  native  whose  sole  duty  would  be  to  stalk 
after  Alice  and  prevent  catastrophe. 

Wireless  brought  us  the  news  that  the  Saxon,  which 
had  left  Southampton  the  week  before  us,  was  on  fire 
and  putting  back  on  her  course.  We  were  to  meet  her 
at  Sierra  Leone  and  take  off  as  many  passengers  as 
possible.  So  we  saw  more  of  the  West  Coast  than  the 
palm-fringed  strip  of  Cape  Verde  which  we  passed 
early  on  the  nineteenth,  for  on  the  twentieth  we  steamed 
past  a  flat  coast  line,  straight  on,  apparently  into  a 
mountain,  then  round  a  green  promontory  into  a  lovely 
bay,  Freetown  harbor,  where  the  Saxon  lay  at  anchor, 
smoke  still  pouring  from  her  blackened  portholes. 

Freetown  was  on  the  mountain  side,  the  barracks 
on  the  top.  Most  of  the  population  of  Freetown 
seemed  to  be  in  canoes  or  square-rigged  sailboats 
streaming  out  to  us  with  limes  and  breadfruit  and 
baskets. 

It  was  sweet  to  see  how  high  sympathy  ran  for  the 
unhappy  Saxonites.  We  offered  to  double,  to  treble, 
in  our  staterooms  that  they  might  be  accommodated, 
and  we  heard  with  scorn  the  stories  which  trickled  from 
the  purser's  quizzically  cynical  lips  of  those  who,  single 
in  staterooms,  had  approached  him  with  tales  of  coughs 
or  snores  which  would  make  life  impossible  for  any 
roommate — although,  of  course,  personally,  each  one 
would  have  been  only  too  glad,  etc.,  etc.  .  .  . 

But  that  night,  looking  sympathetically  off  towards 
the  Saxon's  lights,  against  the  dark  shadows  of  Free- 

14 


THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

town,  and  listening  to  the  endless  creak  of  the  cranes 
swinging  the  luggage  aboard,  we  discovered  that  into 
the  rooms  which  we  ourselves  were  trebling  up  to  vacate, 
only  two  Saxonites  were  being  put. 

It  is  sad  to  record  how  human  nature  changed.  Why 
were  not  the  Saxonites  three  in  a  room?  Was  it,  per- 
chance, because  they  were  the  daughters  of  a  general? 
The  spirit  which  had  laid  the  Magna  Charta  before 
King  John  approached  the  purser  with  this  injustice, 
which  he  acknowledged  with  the  swiftness  of  one  quick- 
ened with  experience,  and  altered  his  arithmetic. 

But  as  a  matter  of  record  by  doubling  and  trebling 
we  took  on  almost  all  first-class  passengers  and  we 
never  heard  the  slightest  murmuring  against  any  pos- 
sible compression,  and,  as  it  proved,  we  were  infinitely 
indebted  to  the  Saxon's  disaster,  for  the  passengers  we 
gained  from  her  added  greatly  to  the  interest  and 
pleasure  of  the  trip. 

They  were  a  distinguished  line  as  they  came  on 
board  next  morning — Sir  Arthur  Lawley,  former  gov- 
ernor of  the  Transvaal,  with  Lady  Lawley  and  their 
daughter;  Sir  Lionel  Phillips  of  South  African  Gold 
King  fame;  the  Due  d'Orleans,  who,  if  France  had  a 
king,  would  be  that  king,  a  big,  blue-eyed,  blonde- 
bearded  man  going  out  with  his  physician  for  big  game 
hunting  in  British  East ;  and,  conspicuous  among  them, 
the  tall,  military  figure  of  General  Smuts  returning 
from  the  alleged  Peace  Conference  with  Ireland. 

My  first  and  instant  impression  was  of  the  soldier  in 
Smuts,  the  air  of  authority,  of  responsibility,  of  quick 
and  stern  decision.  I  saw  a  strong,  dignified  face  of 

15 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

guarded  reserve,  blue  eyes  with  the  keen  glance  of  a 
scout,  bushy  brows,  gray  hair,  a  closely  trimmed  yellow 
mustache,  the  cropped  suggestion  of  an  imperial,  an 
aquiline  nose,  and  firmly  molded  mouth  and  chin. 

It  was  the  face  of  a  man  who  has  fought  and  fought 
hard  and  is  unwearied.  It  had  the  restraint  and 
thoughtfulness  and  indomitable  tenacity  of  statesman- 
ship, and  in  everything  about  him  was  the  soundness 
and  vigor  of  a  splendid  physique  in  the  prime  of  power. 

We  did  not  go  ashore  that  morning,  warned  of  the 
difficulty  of  the  return  in  small  boats  against  a  seventy- 
mile-an-hour  tide.  If  we  had  gone  we  should  have  seen 
the  inhabitants  wending  to  their  eighty-six  churches — 
some  churches  have  congregations  of  only  three  and 
four — clad  frequently  in  white  night  shirts  and  silk 
hats.  I  yearned  for  the  sight. 

Freetown  was  founded  some  eighty  years  ago  by  the 
slaves  returned  from  slave  ships  by  English  gunboats. 
It  has  a  population  of  forty-one  thousand  blacks  of 
conglomerate  races  and  sixty  whites.  There  is  a  black 
London  barrister,  and  a  black  editor  who  is  a  B.A.  of 
Cambridge.  It  could  not  have  been  that  editor  who 
wrote  the  advertisement  which  I  saw  in  a  Freetown 
paper,  the  Sierra  Leone  Echo  and  Law  Chronicle  of 
August  20,  1921: 

BUNGIE 

The  General  sympathetic  undertaker, 
builder  for  the  living  and  the  dead,  con- 
tractor, etc. 

16 


THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

Refuge  and  refreshing  bungalow,  15  Kissy 
Street,  Freetown. 

Ready-made  coffin  supplied  with  hearse  and 
uniformed  men  at  any  moment,  corpse  washed 
and  dressed.  Ready-made  hammock  always 
in  stock  for  sale. 

Trucks,  Venetian  blinds,  etc.,  all  repairs  and 
payment  after  satisfaction. 

And  I'll  bury  your  dead  by  easy  system, 
only  be  honest  to  your  sympathetic  last  friend. 

Bungie's  advice :  Do  not  live  like  a  fool  and 
die  like  a  big  fool.  Eat  and  drink,  pay  your 
honest  debts — that's  Gentleman,  always  pray- 
ing for  a  happy  death  then  a  coffin  by  Bungie. 
Will  bury  the  dead  Book  of  Tobias  I'll  feed  the 
living,  that's  Bungie. 

Contracts  taken  for  Carpentry,  Masonry, 
Painting  Tombstones,  etc.,  at  moderate 
charges. 

R.  LUMPKIN  alias  ALIMANY  BUNGLE. 

Our  sympathetic  friend  had  evidently  joined  no  union 
and  was  no  specialist. 

From  an  old  English  resident  of  Freetown  I  gleaned 
the  information  that  native  wives  cost  five  shillings,  ten 
for  a  "starched  one,"  and  in  the  event  of  no  offspring 
after  a  year  the  wife  is  returned  to  her  father  who  re- 
funds the  shillings.  It  seemed  to  us  that  the  father 
might  have  been  allowed  a  slight  deduction  for  rent  or 
depreciation,  but  no,  he  had  to  refund  the  price  entire. 

17 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

In  all  our  preparation  for  the  trip,  in  all  our  moun- 
tainous equipment,  it  had  never  occurred  to  us  to  plan 
for  a  Fancy  Dress  Ball.  Only  the  experienced  English 
came  provided.  But  for  the  Barber  Shop  we  should 
have  been  lost.  The  Barber  Shop  supplied  everything 
for  just  such  unknowing  ones.  Miss  Hall,  however, 
would  have  none  of  the  offerings  and  with  burnt  cork 
and  a  gunny  sack  she  carried  off  the  humorous  prize 
as  Topsy,  much  to  General  Smuts'  delight. 

The  children  had  as  social  a  time  as  we,  with  their 
own  field  sports  and  games  and  their  masquerade. 
Alice  went  as  a  French  doll  in  a  box  supplied  by  the 
obliging  ship's  carpenter  and,  to  her  frank  joy,  won  a 
prize.  For  her  birthday,  which  fell  on  the  twenty- 
fourth,  she  had  a  party  and  a  marvelous  cake,  arranged 
for  by  shipboard  friends,  the  Days;  and  we,  who  had 
feared  rather  a  lonely  voyage  for  her,  now  looked  for- 
ward to  the  conclusion  of  the  excitement  of  the  trip. 

We  crossed  the  Line  the  morning  of  the  twenty- 
third.  There  were  no  ceremonies.  It  was  not  hot  and 
the  night  after  a  girl  was  wearing  a  fur  coat  between 
dances,  although  the  deck  was  screened  with  bunting. 
Not  a  day  of  the  eighteen  was  uncomfortable;  though 
lacking  a  breeze,  they  might  have  been  warm.  For  a 
character  firm  enough  to  eschew  deck  sports  it  would 
be  an  ideally  restful  trip. 

Our  last  celebration  was  the  second  concert,  followed 
by  the  distribution  of  prizes  to  the  athletic  ones  and  an 
ebullition  of  speeches.  General  Smuts  held  forth  so 
glowingly  on  the  high  moral  rewards  of  living  the 
simple  life  in  South  Africa  that  we  were  almost  per- 

18 


THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

suaded  to  leave  the  effete  civilizations  and  come  out  and 
live  it. 

A  whisper  saved  us.  "The  simple  life  of  a  Prime 
Minister,"  said  a  South  Africander  in  our  ears. 

But  it  was  a  good  speech.  It  had  the  force,  the 
humor,  the  magnetism  and  inspiring  enthusiasm  which 
showed  us  General  Smuts  in  action.  The  shipboard 
days  had  already  given  us  vivid  pictures  of  him.  He 
was  genuinely  interested  in  the  serious  scientific  possi- 
bilities of  the  expedition  and  a  little  amused  and  ap- 
palled at  women  and  a  child  venturing  into  the  wilds. 
He  called  us  his  "dear  gorillas." 

"At  the  end  of  the  Boer  War,"  he  said,  one  after- 
noon, "we  had  irregular  fighting — what  the  English 
call  guerilla  warfare.  But  the  Dutch  did  not  under- 
stand that  word.  'The  damned  English  called  us 
gorillas,'  they  said,"  and  the  general  laughed  heartily 
in  reminiscence.  There  was  good-natured  banter  but 
not  a  touch  of  rancor  in  him.  Wise  Smuts,  they  call 
him. 

There  are  no  dull  phrases  in  his  conversation.  He 
cuts  to  the  heart  of  a  subject.  His  questions  are  in- 
cisive and  direct,  his  speech  is  vigorous,  animated,  shot 
with  humor.  He  asked  interestedly  of  America,  of  the 
problems  there,  of  prohibition,  immigration,  and  the 
women  of  America,  their  activities  and  their  home  life. 

"To  succeed,  a  nation  must  have  fine  women,"  he 
said,  "big,  splendid  women,"  and  you  saw  in  him  the 
strength  of  his  hearty  Dutch  blood  and  the  pride  of 
strong,  self-reliant  ancestry. 

"One  looks  to  America,"  he  said  earnestly,  and  that 

19 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

brought  us  to  the  Peace  Conference  and  President 
Wilson. 

"He  came  as  God,"  he  said.  "The  people  of  Europe 
were  hungry  for  good,  for  the  things  of  the  spirit.  You 
understand?  That  was  the  thing  he  was  to  them.  It 
was  the  secret  of  his  enormous  prestige.  But  no  man 
could  do  it.  It  was  beyond  human  power — the  passions 
of  men  that  had  to  be  reconciled.  I  was  there.  My 
wife  and  children  were  in  Africa,  and  for  six  months 
I  fought  the  terms  of  the  peace  treaty  as  hard  as  I 
could  fight.  I  saw  much  of  Wilson  and  House.  I 
know  the  whole  story.  But  it  was  too  much  for  man 
to  do.  Only  God  could  do  it.  I  said  that  one  night  at 
a  meeting.  I  said,  'Now  is  the  time  for  the  Griqua 
prayer.' ' 

He  explained  that  the  Griqua  is  a  mixed  race,  some 
Hottentot,  a  very  little  white.  But  they  are  Chris- 
tians. "Now  there  was  to  be  a  battle  between  the 
Griqua  and  the  blacks  the  next  day  and  the  Griqua 
came  to  God  in  prayer.  You  ought  to  hear  it  in  broken 
Dutch.  But  it  was  like  this.  He  told  God  he  had 
often  prayed  before  and  been  disappointed.  God  had 
failed  him.  Now  to-morrow  was  to  be  the  great  battle. 
'Blood  will  flow,'  said  the  Griqua.  'It  will  be  a  terrible 
thing.  Now,  God,  you  be  there.  Come  yourself.  Don't 
send  your  Son.  This  is  no  place  for  children.  Come 
yourself.' 

"I  told  the  Peace  Conference  that  night,  'This  is  the 
time  for  the  Griqua  prayer!' ' 

He  laughed,  his  eyes  twinkling.  His  laugh,  his 
humor,  is  a  great  reason  for  his  success.  You  can  see 

20 


THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

him  winning  over  his  opponents,  heartening  his  tired 
soldiers,  joking  with  bluff  Dutch  farmers. 

"Humor  is  the  saving  of  us,"  he  declared.  "It  is  the 
salvation  of  our  race." 

Of  Wilson  he  said  again,  "He  was  not  God,  and  no 
one  but  God  could  have  done  it — not  a  mere  erring 
mortal  like  ourselves." 

I  said  that  I  thought  in  America  the  time  had  come 
for  the  Griqua  prayer,  and  the  talk  went  back  to 
American  problems  again. 

"I  am  reading  Main  Street"  said  General  Smuts, 
and  he  asked  about  the  truth  of  the  picture  it  drew. 
He  found  the  doctor  in  the  story  magnificent,  operating 
away  with  the  tools  at  hand,  at  night,  on  a  farmhouse 
table;  while  the  wife,  who  escaped  from  it  all,  did  noth- 
ing after  she  got  away — nothing  but  talk. 

"Main  Street!"  he  said,  humorously.  "All  my  life 
I  have  been  a  Main  Streeter!"  and  he  chuckled.  "All 
Main  Streeters,  we  fellows  who  are  trying  to  get  things 
done — trying  to  do  something  besides  talk  about  it — 
working  away  with  the  things  at  hand;  and  the  other 
fellows,  who  would  make  such  a  different  world  of  it 
if  they  were  God,  criticizing  and  tearing  away!  If 
they  were  God — they  would  make  a  fearful  mess  of  itl" 
he  flung  out  with  a  flash  of  sternness. 

Several  times  he  spoke  of  his  convictions  of  the  sepa- 
rate origins  of  life. 

"Unquestionably  it  has  had  separate  origins,"  he  said. 
"You  understand ?" 

He  had  a  way  of  saying,  "You  understand?"  or  "Do 
you  follow?"  with  an  intent  look  from  those  searching 

21 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

eyes  of  his  as  if  he  were  saying,  "If  you  are  at  sea, 
speak  out.  Life  is  too  short  to  talk  incomprehensibly." 

He  went  on,  "It  has  sprung  up  and  died  out  and 
sprung  up  in  other  places.  And  we  may  go — just  as 
the  Neanderthal  man  has  gone.  We  may  go.  The 
problem  of  life  is  too  much  for  man.  We  are  in  this 
frame  of  earth  and  God  has  given  us  a  soul  .  .  .  and 
we  strive  and  fight  .  .  .  and  the  consciousness  of  the 
world  and  the  sorrows  of  it  wear  us  out." 

He  stopped.  "The  only  happy  man  I  know  is  the 
black.  He  is  a  distinct  race.  The  black  will  work  all 
day,  work  as  hard  as  you  can  make  him.  But  night 
comes,  he  eats  his  bellyful,  he  sings.  He  has  the  secret 
of  happiness." 

He  touched  his  breast,  half  smiling.  "We  others, 
we  have  too  much  here.  It  is  too  much  for  us,  and  we 
may  go  and  another  race  take  our  place." 

It  struck  me  as  characteristic  of  the  man  that  he 
should  have  this  feeling  so  strongly,  should  accept  this 
with  scientific  detachment  as  a  possible  conclusion  to 
all  our  human  endeavors  and  yet  be,  in  his  infinitesimal 
span  of  life,  not  at  all  detached,  but  one  of  the  hardest 
workers  to  achieve  results  that  no  hope  of  his  could 
call  permanent. 

There  was  nothing  tragic,  nothing  frustrate,  in  his 
face.  He  has  the  steady  courage  of  the  man  who  had 
looked  life  and  death  in  the  eyes  and  marched  through 
defeat  to  continued  effort. 

He  is  a  man  who  believes  in  the  old  substantial  foun- 
dations— country,  home,  and  family.  He  believes  in 
hard  work,  in  enthusiasm,  in  endeavor,  in  good  cheer. 

22 


THE  WEST  COAST  TRIP 

His  roots  go  deep  into  the  soil,  into  the  good,  strong, 
warming  earth.  Well  educated — it  was  Cambridge,  I 
think,  that  he  went  to — it  is  his  native  endowment  of 
sound,  penetrative  good  sense,  disciplined  in  a  hard 
school,  that  is  his  unfailing  inspiration. 

A  South  Africander  gave  me  a  very  vivid  picture  of 
the  General's  wife. 

"She's  independent,"  he  told  me.  "Not  a  bit  proud. 
But  independent.  I  mean,  she'd  do  anything  she  liked 
about  her  house — she'd  do  the  washing  if  she  thought 
she  wanted  to  and  if  the  King  of  England  should  come 
to  call  she'd  not  be  a  bit  put  out,  but  make  him  wel- 
come and  go  right  on.  She's  got  eight  children. 
There's  usually  been  a  baby  in  one  arm  and  a  book 
in  the  other.  She's  a  great  reader  of  very  serious  books." 

I  don't  know  how  true  a  picture  that  is — I  didn't  ask 
the  General — but  I  thought  it  a  delightful  one. 

The  youngest  of  those  eight  children  is  a  little  girl 
about  Alice's  age,  and  for  Alice  and  her  care  in  the 
interior  the  General  gave  me  a  great  deal  of  good  ad- 
vice. At  the  very  moment  of  disembarking,  I  remem- 
ber, he  came  back  from  some  official  group  with  a  last 
word  of  recommendation  about  her. 

The  night  of  that  last  concert  was  what  might  be 
termed  blowy.  It  reminded  us  that  we  were  approach- 
ing the  Cape  and  that  the  Cape  was  first  called  the 
Cabo  Tormentoso,  or  Cape  of  Storms,  by  its  sorrowful 
discoverer  Dias  as  his  mutineers  drove  him  back  past 
it  in  1486. 

Rough  weather  was  generously  predicted.  And  the 
next  morning  seemed  to  us  rough.  The  ship's  officer 

23 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

denied  it.  It  was  too  heavy  a  sea  for  a  life  boat  to  be 
launched,  and  a  strong  swimmer's  agony  could  not  pos- 
sibly last  two  minutes — but  it  wasn't  rough.  It  wasn't 
officially  rough  until  the  fiddles  were  on  the  table.  Now 
our  fiddles  were  not  on.  The  ship  had  an  end-for-end 
plunge  with  a  shuddering  whirl  and  list  which  kept  the 
soup  swirling  round  and  round  so  no  racks  were  needed. 
But  there  were  many  aboard  who  did  not  know  that 
it  was  not  rough.  Some  one  should  have  told  them. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

CAPETOWN,  BULAWAYO,  THE  GRAVE  OF  CECIL 
RHODES,  AND  VICTORIA  FALLS 

CAPETOWN  has  a  magnificent  approach.  It  ranks 
with  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Naples,  and  San  Francisco  as 
one  of  the  most  beautifully  situated  seaports  of  the 
world.  I  have  never  seen  Rio  de  Janeiro,  but  I  can 
imagine  no  more  stirring  entry  than  to  sail  through 
the  Cape's  blue  waters  into  mountain-guarded  Table 
Bay,  flung  round  with  the  peaked  Apostle  Range  but 
dominated  by  the  dark,  precipicelike  height  of  Table 
Mountain.  The  town  lies  at  its  feet,  between  the  rocky 
outlines  of  the  Lion's  Head  and  the  Devil's  Peak. 

The  white  tablecloth  of  cloud  was  rolling  off  the 
mountain's  level  top  as  we  came  in;  flags  were  flying 
in  honor  of  General  Smuts'  arrival,  reception  com- 
mittees stood  waiting,  mounted  police  in  line.  There 
was  a  festive  air  to  the  disembarking. 

Leaving  the  men  to  struggle  with  the  luggage  and 
interview  the  courteous  customs  officials,  we  four  fem- 
inines  drove  to  our  rooms  at  the  Grand  Hotel  for 
which  we  had  wirelessed.  The  Mount  Nelson  is  gen- 
erally frequented  by  tourists,  but  it  was  a  little  too 
far  away  for  our  multitudinous  errands. 

It  was  the  end  of  August,  still  Capetown's  winter, 
a  day  of  lovely  sun  outdoors,  but  within  the  hotel  we 

25 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

found  that  coolness  and  chill  so  reminiscent  to  Ameri- 
cans of  the  Continent  and  Cathedrals.  We  viewed  with 
joy  the  announcement  that  there  was  a  fireplace  in 
every  room,  but  the  joy  was  short-lived.  There  had 
never  been  a  fire  in  any  fireplace.  There  never  was. 

But  we  spent  little  time  indoors  during  the  days  we 
waited  for  our  express  train  north.  The  Capetown 
streets  are  vivacious,  many  of  the  shopping  ones  gal- 
leried  from  sun  and  rain,  with  open  balconies  for  tea — 
which  is  not  only  an  afternoon  function  but  an  eleven 
o'clock  one  as  well — and  with  windows  hung  with 
tempting  ivories — of  which  we  mistakenly  imagined 
we  were  to  see  more  as  we  neared  the  source  of  the 
ivory  supply. 

Flowers  were  everywhere.  Twice  a  week  the  Flower 
Market  masses  the  spring  bloom  before  the  post  office, 
the  most  striking  to  us  being  the  great  bunches  of  calla 
lilies  which  grew  wild;  every  day  the  venders  offered  a 
luxuriance  of  violets  and  narcissus.  The  trim  little 
gardens  of  the  trim  little  brick  villas  in  the  town  were 
solid  sheets  of  golden  daffodils,  and  in  the  beautiful 
residences  which  made  up  the  suburbs  the  flowers  and 
vines  seemed  to  us  a  tropical  profusion,  although  we 
were  told  that  at  the  end  of  the  cold  season  the  flowers 
were  only  beginning. 

The  mingling  of  black  with  white  upon  the  streets 
was  a  note  of  foreignness  to  the  English  visiting  South 
Africa  for  the  first  time;  but  it  had  a  certain  homelike 
air  to  us,  and  it  was  a  distinct  shock  to  hear  some 
starched  mammy  burst  into  Kaffir  to  upbraid  her 
youngsters. 

26 


THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

The  population  is  almost  evenly  divided  as  to  color. 
The  1914  census  gave  the  Europeans  as  80,863  and  the 
colored  as  74,555. 

The  town  is  a  metropolis,  with  an  air  of  energy  and 
enterprise;  but  the  place  I  liked  best  in  it  was  the 
Avenue  leading  out  of  Adderly  Street,  an  old  Dutch 
Avenue,  laid  out  by  Governor  Van  der  Stel,  and  shaded 
by  gnarled  oaks  of  almost  two  centuries. 

The  Avenue  reaches  for  three-quarters  of  a  mile, 
bordered  by  the  Gardens  and  the  Museums  and  the 
foliage-smothered  Government  Houses,  so  that  the  city 
itself  does  not  encroach  upon  it.  No  vehicle  is  allowed 
to  enter,  and  a  saunter  there  in  the  late  afternoon,  with 
the  Lion's  Head  glowing  ruddy  above  the  oaks,  has  a 
tranquil  charm  of  atmosphere  all  its  own. 

There  is  history  in  Capetown.  The  Cape  itself  is  a 
romantic  name,  reminiscent  of  old  Portuguese  adven- 
turings,  and  the  history  of  Cape  Colony  is  the  story  of 
Dutch  enterprise  and  the  East  India  Company,  of 
burghers  in  exile  and  gallant  merchantmen,  of  wrecked 
treasure  and  small-pox  and  Kaffir  raids  and  English 
wars.  The  Cape  Colony  numbered  nearly  twenty-seven 
thousand  when,  in  1815,  it  became  a  permanent  English 
possession  and  its  story  became  an  English  story  of  ad- 
vancing borders,  Kaffir  raids,  and  Boer  wars. 

The  glory  of  Capetown  is  in  its  drives.  There  are 
marvelous  roads,  cut  in  the  rocky  coast  line  of  the  Cape, 
winding  in  and  out  among  the  mountains  for  miles  and 
miles.  The  only  thing  comparable  to  them  is  the  Cor- 
niche  Drive,  and  even  Riviera  memories  paled  before 
the  splendor  of  these  wild  and  lonely  scenes — the  moun- 

27 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

tains  rising  on  one  side  and  the  bloom  and  glitter  of  the 
sea  below. 

I  can  think  of  no  drive  more  beautiful  than  the  one 
past  Sea  Point  and  Camp's  Bay,  edging  the  Twelve 
Apostles'  range  to  Hout's  Bay,  then  crossing  the  Penin- 
sula to  Constantia  and  Wynberg  and  back  to  Capetown 
through  the  Rhodes  Estate.  The  day  we  went  all  the 
trees  were  in  leaf  except  the  oaks;  calla  lilies  were 
blooming  by  the  wayside ;  the  mountain  sides  were  rosy 
with  heather;  the  sea  was  half  a  hundred  blues.  At 
Constantia  Bay  there  was  a  lovely  stretch  of  silver  trees 
against  the  jade  green  of  the  Indian  Ocean. 

Those  trees,  whose  pointed  leaves  were  like  velvety 
silver,  are  peculiar  to  the  Cape.  The  southern  and  eas- 
tern slopes  of  Signal  Hill  are  clothed  with  them,  while 
they  can  hardly  be  induced  to  grow  on  the  other  side  of 
the  mountain. 

Some  day,  before  so  very  long,  there  will  be  a  swift 
passenger  service  from  New  York  to  Capetown  and 
those  South  African  roads  will  be  filled  with  a  swift 
succession  of  motorists.  It  will  be  a  paradise  for  the 
first-comers. 

Outside  of  Capetown  is  Groote  Schur,  an  old-fash- 
ioned white-washed  residence  of  Dutch  architecture, 
which  Cecil  Rhodes  set  aside  in  his  will  as  the  official 
residence  of  the  Prime  Minister  of  that  South  African 
confederation  he  foresaw.  It  is  a  quaint  irony  of  history 
— which  not  even  Rhodes  could  have  foreseen — that  the 
first  two  men  to  occupy  it  should  have  been  of  that 
people  he  so  dreaded — General  Louis  Botha  and  Gen- 
eral Jan  Smuts. 

28 


THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

From  Capetown  to  the  Congo  runs  the  southern  part 
of  the  road  that  was  Rhodes'  dream.  Draw  a  line  up 
from  the  Cape,  along  the  very  backbone  of  Africa,  to  a 
point  almost  under  the  equator,  and  close  to  the  Eastern 
frontier  of  the  Belgian  Congo,  and  you  have  the  way 
that  we  were  going.  Our  objective,  the  three  volcanic 
mountains — Mikeno,  Karisimbi,  Visoke — lay  northeast 
of  Lake  Kivu  in  what  was  formerly  German  East 
Africa,  now  part  of  the  Belgian  Mandate.  Rail  and 
water  would  take  us  north  and  after  that  our  feet. 

We  left  Capetown  Saturday,  September  3,  in  a  com- 
fortable compartment  train,  with  a  good  diner  attached. 
We  rented  bedding  and  towels  from  the  black  boy  who 
appeared  each  night  to  make  up  our  beds.  The  train 
went  twenty  miles  an  hour  and  the  comfort  and  quiet 
and  cleanliness  of  it  made  the  trip  very  much  less  tiring 
than  one  a  quarter  of  the  length  in  America,  while  the 
strangeness  of  the  scenery  kept  us  always  at  the  win- 
dows or  on  the  little  seats  on  the  platform's  end. 

All  the  first  day  we  climbed  through  the  Hex  river 
valley  among  the  mountains  which  form  an  apparently 
insurmountable  barrier  to  the  Great  Karroo  tablelands 
above.  The  next  morning  we  looked  out  upon  the  wide 
expanse  of  veldt,  grass  and  brush  and  flat-topped  gran- 
ite kopjes — a  few  herds  grazing,  a  few  lone  farms,  a 
few  stray  ostrich,  but  no  game — a  graveyard  of  plains 
emptied  of  its  old  life  by  the  Boer  farmers  who  have 
not  replaced  it  with  cultivation. 

Dust  was  beginning  to  sift  in  and  the  cold  morning 
had  warmed  to  sultriness.  We  were  exhausting  the 
resources  of  the  compartment  wash  basins  when  a  note 

29 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

was  brought  in  from  the  private  car  at  the  end  of  our 
train.  Sir  Arthur  and  Lady  Lawley,  who  had  been  on 
the  boat  with  us,  had  learned  of  our  presence  on  the 
same  train  and  Lady  Lawley  wrote  to  offer  us,  not  the 
tea  alone  which  my  mind  foresaw  at  the  first  sentence, 
but  a  nap  for  Alice  in  her  bed  and  baths  for  us  all  in 
her  tub. 

We  restrained  ourselves.  We  accepted  the  bath  for 
Alice  only  and  at  a  convenient  stop  at  Orange  River 
that  afternoon  Miss  Miller  and  I  raced  back  with  her. 
It  was  the  longest  train  I  ever  saw,  bar  none,  not  even 
the  freights  which  roll  past  when  motoring — and  then, 
confronted  by  the  Lawley  tub  in  the  flesh,  we  succumbed 
and  bathed  in  grateful  turn  and  "as  welcome  as  Lady 
Lawley 's  tub"  became  a  familiar  phrase  with  us. 

The  end  of  the  second  day  brought  us  to  Kimberley 
where  the  diamonds  come  from.  Kimberley  is  a  snap- 
shot of  impressions — an  outline  of  diamond  mines 
against  the  paling  sky — wide  streets,  low  buildings,  and 
shady  pepper  trees — the  hospitality  of  Kenilworth  Castle 
acquaintances ;  a  white  tropic  house  and  charming  court ; 
hasty  motoring  and  farewells. 

,*%  In  1869  you  could  not  find  Kimberley  on  any  map. 
In  1870  a  shining  little  stone  was  picked  up  by  a  Boer 
farmer.  In  1871  ten  thousand  men  were  digging  fran- 
tically in  that  precious  earth — sixteen  hundred  claims, 
each  thirty-one  feet  square,  were  pegged  out. 

Access  to  these  claims  was  difficult,  for  the  narrow 
strips  required  to  be  left  for  roadways  soon  became 
mere  bridges  as  the  ground  was  excavated ;  water  filled 
in,  slides  occurred,  dust  fell  from  one  claim  to  another, 

30 


THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

quarrels  and  shooting  affrays  led  to  law-suits  and  the 
diggers  became  impatient  of  the  situation  and  resentful 
of  increased  taxes  and  rents. 

Exasperated  or  discouraged,  they  sold  their  claims, 
sold  them  to  one  or  the  other  of  two  shabbily  dressed 
men  who  happened  invariably  to  turn  up — and  Cecil 
Rhodes  and  Barney  Barnato  had  the  diamond  industry 
of  South  Africa  in  their  hands. 

Their  amalgamation,  now  known  as  the  De  Beers 
Consolidated  Mining  Company,  is  one  of  the  greatest 
coups  in  the  history  of  finance.  The  first  thing  they  did 
was  to  close  the  greater  part  of  the  mines  so  that  a 
limited  output  would  preserve  the  high  prices. 

The  name  of  Maf  eking  got  me  out  next  morning,  at 
what  I  then  considered  an  unearthly  hour  of  six-thirty, 
to  see  a  long  station  of  stalls,  one  huge  pepper  tree,  two 
aloes,  three  palms  in  tubs,  and  four  natives  selling 
dusters.  I  strolled  out  and  discovered  the  outskirts  of 
the  town,  hot  and  empty  streets,  one-story  stores, 
flagged  sidewalks,  when  sidewalks  there  were,  and  came 
back  to  the  stalls  to  imbibe  bad  coffee  in  a  cracked  cup 
from  a  cross-eyed  proprietress. 

I  felt  an  increased  respect  for  that  gallant  band  who 
had  defended  the  town  so  successfully.  Personally  I 
should  have  surrendered  it  at  the  first  opportunity,  or 
even  paid  them  to  take  it  away.  . . .  But  then  the  coffee 
was  exceptionally  bad. 

Little  black  boys  in  increasing  decollete  began  to 
beguile  our  stops  with  offerings  of  grotesquely  carved 
giraffes — made  in  Japan! — and  a  few  native  huts  ap- 

31 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

peared.  We  rushed  out  and  photographed  them  as  if 
they  were  the  last  huts  we  should  see  in  Africa.  In  the 
brush  and  veldt  I  often  caught  a  likeness  to  our  western 
sagebrush  country,  but  just  when  the  scene  appeared 
familiar  some  swift  touch  changed  it  utterly — a  huge 
cone  of  a  sun-baked  ant  hill,  a  scattering  of  little 
crooked  trees,  or  a  blaze  of  scarlet  flowers  on  bare 
branches. 

The  morning  of  the  fourth  day  brought  us  to  Bula- 
wayo  where  we  motored  thirty  miles  across  the  veldt 
through  Matapos  Park  to  World's  View. 

In  Bulawayo  there  stands  Rhodes'  statue — a  stocky, 
thick-set,  carelessly  dressed  man,  hands  behind  him,  legs 
apart,  looking  out  to  the  north  where  his  dream  road 
stretched.  The  body  of  that  man  lies  among  the  granite 
boulders  on  a  mountain  top,  beneath  a  simply  marked 
bronze  slab. 

Forceful,  hard-headed,  dreamer  and  laborer,  far-see- 
ing, indomitable,  and  unsparing,  his  name  has  become 
identified  now  with  that  Empire  for  which  he  wrought 
with  such  passion  of  will  in  spite  of  her.  It  is  one  with 
that  dream  of  an  All  Red  railroad  from  Cape  to  Cairo, 
of  which  the  world  has  heard  so  much  that  a  good  part 
of  the  world  takes  for  granted  the  dream's  accomplish- 
ment. 

He  is  not  alone  upon  his  mountain  top.  Down  at  the 
beginning  of  the  climb  there  is  cut  in  the  rock, 

THIS  PLACE  Is  CONSECRATED 
AND  SET  APAET  FOREVER 
To  BE  THE  RESTING  PLACE  OF  THOSE  WHO 
HAVE  DESERVED  WELL  OF  THEIR  COUNTRY 

32 


THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

and  a  little  way  below  Rhodes'  grave,  at  one  side,  is  a 
white  marble  memorial  guarding  the  bodies  and  mem- 
ory of  Allan  Wilson  and  his  thirty-three  men  who  fell 
against  the  Matabele — gallant  soldiers  perishing  for 
that  Empire  for  which  the  master  spirit  on  the  rock 
beside  them  wrought  so  unflinchingly. 

From  the  top  the  mountainsides  sloped  down  into 
forest  and  brush,  far-reaching  until  they  met  the  hills 
on  the  horizon.  As  we  were  there,  a  troop  of  baboons 
came  into  the  trees,  their  strange  barking  emphasizing 
the  solitudes. 

It  is  a  wonderful  resting  place,  rock  and  height  and 
encircling  view  of  his  loved  land,  and  if  his  unresting 
spirit  could  lie  quiet  anywhere  it  is  there  in  the  place  he 
had  designated.  He  went  unready  and  untired  to  his 
end — his  life  work,  as  he  thought,  unfinished,  but  his 
soul  has  gone  marching  on,  like  John  Brown's. 

"Keeping  faith  with  Cecil  Rhodes"  will  be  the  poli- 
tician's slogan  for  years,  just  as  the  name  of  Lincoln  is 
with  us. 

At  Bulawayo  we  changed  trains  and  discovered  that 
an  unfeeling  power  had  removed  the  diner.  We  had 
spent  at  Rhodes'  grave  the  time  perhaps  intended  to  be 
employed  in  collecting  food,  but  at  a  small  station  far- 
ther on  the  kindly  wife  of  the  station-master  parted  with 
some  of  her  own  supply  for  us  and  half  her  precious 
bread  for  our  little  girl.  We  lunched  and  dined  upon 
these  gleanings,  and  it  might  be  said  that  we  had  a 
distinct  interest  in  the  breakfast  at  the  hotel  at  Victoria 
Falls  the  next  morning. 

The  very  sight  of  the  hotel  was  charming,  a  long,  one- 

33 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

story  building  with  raying  wings.  From  the  verandas 
at  the  back  we  could  see  the  gorges  of  the  Falls  and  the 
bridge  which  Rhodes  had  planned,  which  was  completed 
in  1904.  The  thunder  of  the  Falls  was  part  of  the 
place  like  the  rhythm  of  heavy  surf  on  the  sea  coast. 

The  many  views  of  the  Falls  themselves  are  at  some 
distance  and  the  way  is  covered  by  little  trolleys,  tiny 
cars  for  ten  or  twelve,  on  miniature  tracks,  operated  by 
man-power.  The  man-power,  a  variable  number  of 
natives,  seizes  the  car  and  pushes.  It  is  simplicity  itself, 
except  perhaps  for  the  natives. 

From  the  landing  stage  to  which  the  trolley  brought 
us  we  took  a  native  canoe  out  to  Cataract  Island. 
There  are  two  large  islands — Cataract  and  Livingstone 
— perched  on  the  very  brink  of  the  Falls,  and  the  Devil's 
Cataract  is  that  plunge  of  water  between  Cataract 
Island  and  the  South  Bank. 

It  was  an  unforgettable  first  glimpse,  a  mad  leap  of 
water  over  savage  rocks,  into  a  deep  and  narrow  gorge, 
with  a  barbaric  blaze  of  red  aloes  on  the  banks  against 
the  white  foam.  The  color  and  beauty  of  the  country 
were  all  a  part  of  the  picture.  It  was  utterly  wild 
and  lonely,  as  untouched  and  solitary  as  when  Living- 
stone in  1855  first  solved  the  mystery  of  the  Smoke  that 
Thunders — Mosi-oa-Tunya — the  native  name  for  the 
Falls,  born  of  the  white  overhanging  cloud  of  vapor  that 
can  be  seen  for  twenty  miles. 

There  is  no  comparison  between  Niagara  and  Vic- 
toria. To  say  that  Victoria  has  two  and  a  half  times 
the  height,  four  times  the  volume  of  Niagara,  and  a 
width  that  is  the  reach  of  ten  city  blocks,  tells  nothing. 

34 


iJ   o> 


fc  o 

%z 


5  9 


WHERE  Do  WE  Go  FROM  HERE? 
ALICE   HASTINGS   BRADLEY  ON   THE   CONGO 


[page  42] 


STEAMER  ON  THE  LTTALABA  RIVER 


[page  42] 


THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

Niagara  is  a  spectacle,  an  unchallenged  spectacle,  for 
it  has  the  distance  and  perspective  from  which  it  can  be 
seen — Victoria  is  a  sensation. 

The  Zambezi,  the  second  largest  river  in  Africa, 
comes  rolling  quietly  out  of  the  very  heart  of  the  con- 
tinent, and  in  a  flash  its  whole  width  plunges  blindly 
down  into  the  deep  and  narrow  chasm  through  which 
it  rushes,  raging  and  storming,  for  more  than  forty 
miles.  The  wild  and  savage  splendor  of  it  makes  Ni- 
agara a  benign  performance.  The  rocks  on  the  brink 
of  the  plunge  shatter  the  racing  water  into  diamond 
points.  It  is  spray  when  it  begins  to  fall,  foam  and 
fury  and  fairy  crystals,  outflung  like  powder  from  some 
giant  gun,  hurtling  into  air  to  run  together  in  sheer- 
dropping  columns,  that  fall  a  shuddering  depth  into 
thundering  gorges  below,  to  rise  as  spray  again  shot 
with  the  gleam  of  double  rainbows. 

At  Victoria  we  donned  our  gray  pith  helmets,  com- 
panions of  many  days  to  come,  and  my  fears  for  Alice 
were  laid.  No  lynx-eyed  native  would  be  needed  to 
stalk  after  her  and  prevent  carelessness.  She  never  for- 
got, she  never  objected,  and  she  reminded  the  rest  of  us 
with  fairly  irritating  consistency. 

On  the  eve  of  departure  we  left  a  call  for  five  in  the 
morning.  The  train  to  the  Congo  was  due  at  six-twenty 
and  an  hour  and  twenty  minutes  was  not  too  much  time. 
Now  while  the  dining  room  of  the  hotel  was  excellent 
and  the  main  rooms  were  charming,  the  bedroom  service 
had  a  certain  negligence  of  attention  from  the  manage- 
ment, betokening  a  mind  preoccupied  with  other  things. 

35 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

So  we  were  insistent  that  our  call  should  be  loud  and 
punctual. 

The  management  was  amused.    It  said  it  never  failed. 

I  woke  at  six.  A  tropic  dawn  was  lightening  the 
world.  My  watch  dial  showed  six.  In  twenty  minutes 
the  train  would  roll  out  of  the  station.  In  the  moment, 
after  the  leap  from  the  bed  and  the  reach  for  the  nearest 
garment,  came  a  knock  at  the  door. 

"Six  o'clock,"  said  the  management's  representative. 

We  knew  it.  What  we  said  there  is  no  use  to  record. 
Mr.  Akeley  and  Mr.  Bradley  were  in  the  hall,  shouting 
for  porters  for  our  trunks  and  bags  and  dressing  be- 
tween shouts.  I  sped  into  the  nearest  things  and  while 
Miss  Hall  jammed  down  the  suitcase  tops  I  drew  a  coat 
over  Alice's  pajamas,  thrust  on  sandals  and  socks, 
topped  her  with  a  helmet  and  in  seventeen  minutes, 
breathless  but  triumphant,  we  stood  in  front  of  the  sta- 
tion, followed  by  galloping  porters  with  luggage,  and 
the  rest  of  the  party  on  their  trail. 

We  stood  there  an  hour  and  twenty  minutes.  We 
saw  day  dawn  brighter  and  brighter,  revealing  our 
unwashed  faces  and  sketchily  done  hair.  The  grass  and 
flowers  took  on  the  color  of  light,  the  dogs  came  down 
to  investigate  our  boxes,  and  play  with  Alice  who,  with 
pajamas  flapping  beneath  her  coat,  scrambled  about 
the  mound  of  luggage. 

The  station  was  yet  unopened  and  the  station  clock 
had  stopped.  I  saw  a  black  boy,  sent  by  the  curio 
dealer  across  the  tracks,  come  with  a  clock  in  his  hand, 
regard  the  station  time-piece  intently,  and  then,  as  he 
had  been  told  to  set  his  clock  by  the  station  clock,  he 

36 


THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

put  the  hands  conscientiously  at  a  quarter  after  four 
and  ambled  back  again. 

Ultimately  the  train  came,  and  a  day  and  a  night  and 
another  day  of  it  brought  us  to  Sakania,  the  Belgian 
frontier. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

FBOM  ELIZABETHVILLE  DOWN  THE  LUALABA 
RIVER  TO  LAKE  TANGANYIKA 

WE  entered  the  Belgian  Congo  on  September  10,  at 
ten-thirty  at  night,  and  my  first  impressions  were  of 
darkness  and  confusion,  of  a  long,  low  building  with 
wanly  glimmering  lights,  returning  travelers  bustling 
about,  porters  swarming  round  little  fires  on  the  earth 
by  the  tracks,  and  dogs  shifting  from  group  to  group  in 
the  peculiarly  apprehensive  manner  of  native  dogs. 

Here  we  presented  passports,  arranged  for  the  lug- 
gage to  go  through  in  bond  to  Elizabethville,  and 
changed  from  the  British  railways  to  the  Katanga  rail- 
ways of  the  Congo. 

A  night  and  more  than  half  another  day  brought  us 
to  Elizabethville,  the  capital  of  Katanga  province, 
where  we  were  met  by  representatives  of  the  absent 
vice-governor  and  motored  to  the  hotel  where  rooms 
had  been  arranged. 

We  had  come  now  twenty-five  hundred  miles  of  the 
northward  way  and  we  knew  one  thing  already  about 
the  equatorial  gorilla.  He  was  inaccessible.  No 
casual  sportsman,  landing  on  the  coast,  was  going  to 
corner  him. 

We  waited  a  week  in  Elizabethville,  because  the  lug- 

38 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

gage  which  had  left  Capetown  with  us,  and  for  which 
we  were  paying  luggage  rates  and  not  freight  in  order 
to  have  it  accompany  us,  had  disappeared.  We  had 
seen  it  last  at  Livingstone,  just  this  side  of  Victoria 
Falls,  and  persistent  telephoning  disclosed  that  it  was 
still  there.  We  dislodged  it  at  last  and  it  arrived  in  a 
cattle  car,  too  late  for  the  first  connection  north,  for 
only  two  trains  a  week  run  to  the  interior  from  Eliza- 
bethville. 

The  Rhodesian  Railway,  I  may  add,  saw  no  reason 
whatever  in  the  cattle  car  journey  to  rebate  anything 
of  the  rate  we  were  paying  to  insure  the  retention  of 
that  luggage  in  a  luggage  van.  They  are  still  refrain- 
ing from  seeing  it,  although  we  are  continuing  the  cor- 
respondence in  a  public-minded  spirit  of  enlighten- 
ment. 

Elizabethville  is  young  and  the  early  residents  still 
talk  of  their  first  tin  houses,  but  it  is  built  now  for  the 
future,  well  laid  out,  with  wide  streets  and  attractive 
administrative  buildings.  There  are  clubs  and  tennis 
and  golf  and  motors — in  spite  of  the  dollar  and  a  quar- 
ter for  gasoline — good  shops  and  Belgian  and  English 
libraries.  The  copper  mines  have  brought  quite  a  few 
Americans  there,  and  our  wait  was  enlivened  by  every- 
thing that  the  new  acquaintances  and  the  courteous 
acting  vice-governor,  Monsieur  Serruys,  could  do  for  us. 

We  were  very  comfortable  at  the  Hotel  de  Bruxelles, 
our  first  characteristic  tropic  hotel,  with  its  stretch  of 
veranda  before  the  dining  room,  reading  room  and  bar, 
through  which  one  indiscriminately  sauntered  to  reach 

39 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  bedrooms  beyond,  at  right  angles  to  the  main  build- 
ing on  either  side  of  a  court. 

Madame  Franzos,  the  proprietess,  was  a  presiding 
genius,  or  rather  an  ambulatory  one,  and  to  see  her 
march  majestically  up  and  down  the  court  was  to  see 
a  general  on  scout  duty.  Her  shout  of  "Boy"  meant 
violent  retribution. 

We  were  getting  acquainted  now  with  the  boy  sys- 
tem. If  we  wanted  boots  or  a  bath  we  put  our  heads 
out  a  window  or  door  and  shouted  "Boy!"  into  the  re- 
sounding court.  There  is  a  directness  about  this  lacking 
to  the  buzzer  system.  If  you  don't  get  your  boy  you 
can  always  raise  your  voice,  but  you  cannot  always  raise 
your  buzzer.  Its  drawbacks  are  for  the  other  guests 
who  may  be  wanting  a  nap  when  you  want  your  boy,  but 
no  system  is  universally  considerate. 

We  got  some  boys  ourselves  in  Elizabethville.  We 
had  hoped  to  find  there  a  complete  safari  outfit  for  the 
interior,  gun  boys,  tent  boys,  cook  and  interpreter  such 
as  Mr.  Akeley  had  always  obtained  in  British  East, 
but  there  was  nothing  of  the  sort  to  be  found.  The 
Congo  was  not  invaded  by  travelers  and  we  would  have 
to  pick  up  what  material  we  could  as  we  went  along. 

We  found  three  house  boys  whom  we  took  with  us 
— three  with  whom  we  were  to  spend  many  months  of 
experience.  Little  they  knew  as  they  stepped  off  that 
Sunday  morning  in  the  glory  of  the  private  car  which 
the  hospitable  Belgian  government  furnished  us,  again 
through  the  courteous  offices  of  Monsieur  Serruys, 
what  fate  was  holding  in  reserve  for  them. 

Mablanga,  Kiani,  and  Merrick  they  were,  new-shod, 

40 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

clean  trousered  and  shifted,  check-capped,  with  Merrick 
sporting  an  artificial  red  rose  upon  his  purple  shirt. 
The  rose  was  all  that  survived  of  his  outfit.  It  had 
many  transient  backgrounds,  but  the  most  humorous  of 
all  was  the  suit  of  pink  cotton  pajamas  which  Miss 
Miller  supplied  at  a  Congo  camp  to  relieve  his  very 
evident  needs. 

We  paid  each  of  these  boys  the  scandalously  high 
wages  of  fifty  francs  a  month — three  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  as  the  rate  of  exchange  then  stood — and  thirty- 
five  cents  a  week  to  provide  food.  Most  Belgians,  we 
discovered  later,  paid  but  half  that  and  I  am  afraid  that 
our  trio  had  the  bright  idea  of  taking  advantage  of  our 
inexperience.  But  considering  all  that  fell  to  their  lot 
while  they  were  with  us  I  cannot  feel  that  they  were 
overpaid. 

The  country  through  which  we  went  was  increasingly 
beautiful — a  rolling  country  of  wide  valleys  and  splen- 
did slopes,  overflung  with  forest  like  a  Persian  rug. 
There  was  a  soft,  rusty-rose  tone  of  spring  leaves  that 
wove  in  and  out  like  an  elusive  pattern;  there  were 
deeper  notes  of  red  from  hanging  tree  fruits;  there 
were  gleams  of  gold  and  orange  and  crimson  from 
flowering  shrubs  and  trees,  all  interwoven  in  a  tapestry 
of  woodland  greens  and  browns,  soft  and  subdued, 
changeful  with  sunlight  and  cloud  shadow. 

But  for  all  the  glory  of  color  the  charm  of  African 
landscape  is  the  subtlety  of  it,  the  crooked  trees,  the 
spreading,  flat-topped  acacias  that  would  delight  a 
Japanese  artist,  the  silver  harmony  of  grays  and 
browns,  the  fineness  of  every  unerring  line. 

41 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

The  most  curious  features  were  the  gigantic  ant  hills, 
huge,  hard-baked  cones  made  by  the  white  ant  that  is 
the  curse  of  Africa,  eating  out  every  wooden  foundation. 
The  cone  is  built  up  about  a  tree  trunk,  and  in  some  cases 
the  original  branches  of  the  trees  are  still  sticking  out 
of  the  top,  but  more  often  every  vestige  of  the  original 
support  has  disappeared.  In  Elizabethville  we  had 
seen  one  ant  hill,  in  a  garden,  used  as  a  storehouse,  with 
a  door  set  in  place. 

A  few  antelope  could  be  seen  now  and  some  secre- 
tary birds,  but  the  country  was  as  barren  of  game  as 
the  veldt,  and  we  all  began  to  wonder  if  we  were 
really  in  the  interior  of  Africa  when,  after  a  day  and  a 
night,  the  little  railroad — built  within  the  last  five  years 
— ended  abruptly  upon  the  banks  of  the  Lualaba  River 
and  our  adventuring  began. 

The  Lualaba  River  is  really  the  Upper  Congo,  but 
it  achieved  a  name  of  its  own  before  Stanley  discovered 
the  connection.  Bukama,  the  railway's  end,  was  the 
highest  point  on  the  river  to  which  light  steamers  can 
penetrate.  Now  it  was  dry  season,  before  the  Rains, 
and  we  were  uncertain  about  any  river  transportation, 
so  when  our  train  came  to  its  final  stop  by  a  thatched 
depot  at  the  river  brink  we  rushed  out  into  the  tropic 
dark  and  discovered  that,  though  a  regular  steamer  was 
not  here,  there  was  a  small  affair  that  could  take  us 
and  would  start  in  the  morning. 

Our  delight  was  great.  It  lasted  just  thirty  seconds, 
until  we  received  the  answer  to  our  second  question. 
Our  luggage?  But  there  was  no  luggage. 

I  never  saw  anything  so  sudden  and  so  sickeningly 

42 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

complete  as  our  despair.  We  stood  there  in  the  raying 
lantern  light  and  looked  tragically  at  each  other  and 
incredulously  at  the  light-hearted  Belgian  who  told  us 
this.  He  had  no  conception  of  our  anguish.  He  went 
on  to  say  that  while  we  waited  for  it  we  could  live  in  the 
private  car — they  would  leave  it  on  the  tracks  when  the 
train  went  back. 

But  our  own  eyes,  the  masculine  eyes  of  the  party, 
had  seen  the  luggage  leave  on  a  goods  train  before  we 
left.  That  train  had  arrived.  Therefore  the  luggage 
must  have  arrived.  .  .  .  But  there  was  no  luggage. 
Grimly  Mr.  Akeley  spoke  of  trouble.  Amiably  the 
agent  assured  him  that  he  lived  on  trouble  and  re- 
counted an  anecdote,  perhaps  to  woo  us  from  our  pri- 
vate griefs,  of  a  Belgian  doctor  who  had  come  from 
Brussels  with  a  magnificent  equipment  which  had  been 
lost  and  never  found,  although  he  had  waited  five 
months. 

Urgently  my  husband  insisted  that  the  official  was 
mistaken  and  that  the  luggage  had  come  but  had  been 
overlooked.  I  began  to  be  ashamed  of  his  insistence. 
To  have  overlooked  that  mountain  of  luggage  suggested 
such  bare-faced  negligence  on  the  part  of  the  official 
who,  after  all,  was  not  responsible  for  its  nonarrival! 

But  my  husband  is  an  insistent  character  and  he  de- 
scribed the  luggage  and  repeatedly  detailed  its  de- 
parture in  the  car,  and  at  last  the  word  "car"  had  a 
revivifying  effect.  There  was  a  car,  it  developed,  but 
it  had  not  been  opened,  for  the  papers  for  it  had  not 
come.  So  nothing  could  be  done. 

But  a  great  deal  was  done.  We  had  papers  enough, 

43 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  the  official  obligingly  met  us  halfway  now  that  the 
mystery  was  solved,  and  the  Bukama  affair  ended  in 
tea  and  hospitality  in  the  thatched  depot  and  such 
exuberance  of  good  feeling  as  only  the  reprieved  at  the 
gallows'  foot  can  know. 

We  were  off  next  morning  after  a  torrential  down- 
pour, the  first  rain  of  the  season,  in  an  infinitesimal 
steamer,  piled  very  full  with  ourselves  and  the  wood 
fuel  and  the  native  crew  and  the  Belgian  captain;  our 
luggage  in  an  open  scow  lashed  to  one  side,  and  some 
natives  in  a  similar  scow  on  the  other  side.  We  sat 
forward  under  a  little  iron  roof  and  ultimately  scram- 
bled up  the  rail  and  sat  on  the  top  of  the  roof. 

We  had  made  no  preparations  for  food,  having  been 
told  at  Elizabethville  that  the  passenger  steamer  could 
provide  that,  and  at  the  last  moment  the  kindly  official 
in  charge  of  the  freight  depot  came  rushing  down  the 
bank  with  the  hot  and  fairly  kicking  leg  of  a  goat 
which  he  had  just  that  minute  despatched  for  us.  How- 
ever, there  was  another  passenger,  another  river  cap- 
tain journeying  as  far  as  his  own  grass  hut,  where  he 
and  his  wife  contributed  antelope  and  everything  else 
we  would  accept,  so  the  goat  was  a  vain  oblation,  al- 
though appreciated  by  our  boys. 

All  that  day  we  glided  between  groves  of  borassus 
palms,  the  loveliest  trees  in  Africa,  and  past  banks 
overgrown  with  forest,  always  with  purple-peaked 
mountains  against  the  sky.  There  were  plains  of  ante- 
lopes and  there  were  three  elephants  tranquilly  feed- 
ing; there  were  crocodiles  slipping  silently  from  sand- 
bars at  our  approach;  and  there  was  a  huge  hippo 

44 


BORASSUS  PALMS  ON  THE  LTIALABA  RIVEE 


[page  44] 


CONGO  BELLES  TRAVELING 


I page  44] 


Courtesy  of  Major  Flint 

CROCODILE  WITH  ARM  AND  LEG  OF  NATIVE  HE  HAD  JUST  EATEN 

[page  48] 


GAVIAL,  ASIATIC   SPECIES   OF  CROCODILE,   CAUGHT   IN   LUALABA   RIVER 

'i'7p   481 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

swimming  open-mouthed  toward  us.  We  were  a  long 
way  yet  from  gorillas,  but  we  began  to  feel  that  we 
were  on  the  trail,  really  in  Africa,  headed  up  to  the 
heart  of  it. 

Our  traveling  companions  in  the  native  barge  were 
Congo  belles  returning  down  river  clad  in  the  latest 
thing  in  calico  and  beads.  At  Elizabethville  a  native 
woman  with  any  pretension  to  fashion  wore  a  regular 
dress  with  a  yoke  of  white  embroidery  and  with  short, 
puffed  sleeves.  Now  the  girls  wore  a  length  of  calico 
knotted  under  the  arms — not  any  kind  of  calico,  for 
Zanzibar  set  the  styles  and  the  vogue  changed  with 
the  advent  of  fresh  traders.  A  Paisley  shawl  pattern 
in  maroon  was  particularly  good  this  year. 

Across  the  smooth,  dark  shoulders  and  arms  that  this 
classic  simplicity  left  bare,  went  the  darker  pattern  of 
cicatrization  marks — little  cuts  made  in  the  skin  when 
a  child  is  young  and  filled  with  ashes  to  prevent  healing. 
On  the  men  the  marks  were  often  tribal  in  significance ; 
on  the  women  they  were  made  apparently  only  for  orna- 
ment— little  flights  of  arrow  heads  crossing  the  shoul- 
ders or  relieving  the  monotony  of  flat  cheeks. 

The  Congo  style  of  hair  dressing  was  elaborate;  it 
took  a  girl  an  entire  day  to  do  her  hair,  dividing  the  head 
area  into  circles  and  segments  with  mathematical  pre- 
cision and  twisting  the  hair  strands  into  black  strings 
that  she  knotted  tightly  under  her  chin.  Then,  be- 
ing near  enough  to  civilization  to  feel  the  influence  of 
the  bandana,  she  wound  another  piece  of  calico  about 
the  coiffure  and  the  emerging  strands  of  hair  had  some- 
what the  effect  of  bonnet  strings.  The  native  comb  was 

45 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

of  wood,  narrow  and  deep  and  decorated  with  black 
paint. 

That  night  we  made  connections  with  a  freight 
steamer  whose  captain,  frankly  amazed  at  this  invasion 
of  Americans,  gave  us  the  freedom  of  the  ship  and  we 
tucked  ourselves  away,  the  girls  in  the  cabin  of  the 
absent  mechanician,  and  Mr.  Akeley  in  a  room  on  the 
accompanying  barge.  Herbert  and  I  set  up  our  cots 
on  deck.  By  day  we  sat  forward  on  the  barge  in  our 
steamer  chairs,  gliding  along  as  luxuriously  as  Cleo- 
patra in  a  dhahabiyah  and  through  more  marvelous 
scenery  than  even  the  Nile  can  offer.  Our  three  boys 
cooked  for  us  over  an  open  fire  on  the  steel  deck.  As 
all  the  native  passengers  camped  about  the  back  of  the 
barge  had  their  own  little  cooking  fires,  too,  we  pre- 
sented the  appearance  of  a  floating  picnic  ground. 

We  had  opened  one  of  our  London  chop  boxes  con- 
taining an  assortment  of  good  things  in  tins — coffee 
and  tea,  milk,  butter,  sugar,  jam,  cheese,  prunes, 
deviled  ham,  tongue,  etc.,  and  at  our  stops  at  native 
villages  we  bought  eggs  and  bananas  and  chicken — 
eggs  at  four  cents  the  dozen,  bananas  at  three  and  a 
half  cents  a  bunch,  and  chickens  at  seven  cents  apiece. 
That  was  scandalously  high  for  chickens;  we  rarely 
paid  more  than  three  and  a  half  cents  after  that. 

We  had  to  be  careful  of  Alice  on  this  boat  on  these 
slippery,  unrailed  decks,  but  we  never  let  her  stir  alone 
and  found  a  safe  corner  where  she  spent  her  days  at 
her  favorite  drawing  and  coloring.  The  river  was  full 
of  crocodiles.  Several  times  we  saw  them  drifting  past, 
like  submerged  logs,  and  twice,  looking  over  the  side, 

46 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

I  caught  a  crocodile's  goggle  eyes  looking  up  at  me  in 
sinister  expectancy. 

The  captain  of  our  first  little  steamer  had  just  had 
a  friend  pulled  under  by  the  crocs  while  taking  a  rash 
swim.  It  seems  to  me  the  most  horrible  of  deaths. 
There  are  several  theories  about  the  way  the  crocodile 
consumes  its  victim.  Some  hunters  say  that  he  crunches 
down  his  prey  at  once;  others,  that  he  holds  it  under 
until  it  is  drowned  and  then  often  hides  it  away  on  the 
bank  until  it  is  what  might  be  called  riper  and  more 
flavored  to  his  taste. 

Major  Hamilton,  for  many  years  game  warden  in 
British  East,  is  a  partisan  of  the  filed-for-reference 
theory.  He  vouches  for  the  story  of  a  young  man  who 
was  pulled  down  and  held  under  until  the  crocodile 
judged  that  he  was  drowned.  The  young  man  revived 
in  a  black,  wet  cave  in  the  river  bank,  worn  by  the 
waters  when  high,  but  just  now  at  the  river  level.  He 
was  uninjured  but  he  did  not  dare  try  to  crawl  out  to- 
wards the  river  where  the  crocodile  might  be,  so  he 
clawed  at  the  earth  above  him  and  succeeded  in  break- 
ing his  way  through  the  sod  overhead  and  making  his 
escape. 

I  haven't  the  slightest  right  to  an  opinion,  but  after 
hearing  a  number  of  first-hand  stories  on  the  subject 
it  doesn't  seem  to  me  reasonable  that  the  crocodile  is 
bound  by  any  hard  and  fast  rule.  If  he  is  hungry  it 
would  be  natural  to  eat  at  once;  if  his  appetite  is  satis- 
fied, but  he  has  a  chance  at  something,  it  would  be 
equally  natural  for  him  to  pull  it  down  and  thriftily 
hide  it  away.  That  he  can  ravenously  bolt  his  food 

47 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

is  shown  by  the  photograph  of  a  specimen  shot  by 
Major  Flint  of  Uganda,  where  the  entire  arm  and 
leg  of  a  hastily  consumed  native  were  excavated  from 
the  croc  and  piled  jauntily  on  his  back  as  a  photo- 
graphic exhibit. 

Five  days  on  the  Lualaba  brought  us  to  Kabalo,  a 
Belgian  outpost,  where  there  was  an  administrator 
and  his  wife,  the  young  chef  de  gare,  and  two  repre- 
sentatives of  trading  stores.  Here  we  camped  on  the 
river  bank  to  await  the  twice-a-week  little  train  to  Lake 
Tanganyika.  While  here  the  natives  found  a  crocodile 
entangled  in  a  huge  fishing  net  and  brought  it  ashore 
in  front  of  our  tents.  They  had  tortured  it  brutally 
and  it  was  nearly  dead  when  I  saw  it,  motionless  and 
hardly  breathing.  It  was  all  the  more  sickening  be- 
cause it  was  not  a  man-eating  crocodile  at  all  but  a  spe- 
cies of  gavial,  a  fish-eater,  an  Asiatic  species  not  usually 
found  in  Africa.  The  snout  is  different  from  that  of 
the  true  crocodile,  thinner,  and  curving  to  a  kind  of 
knob  at  the  end. 

From  Kabalo  our  last  reach  of  railroad  brought  us 
in  a  day's  journey  to  Albertville  on  Lake  Tanganyika. 
At  Albertville  I  had  a  letter  from  a  friend  sent  ahead 
to  greet  us.  He  hoped  that  we  would  like  Main  Street 
and  that  the  hotel  would  not  be  all  we  feared.  Hotel! 
He  had  been  misled  by  that  "ville"  in  Albertville.  Our 
hotel  was  a  windy  hillside  so  hard-baked  that  it  was 
impossible  to  pound  a  tent-peg  into  it,  and  the  first 
night  the  men  did  not  get  their  tent  up  at  all  but 
slept  on  cots,  where  morning  brought  the  magnificent 

48 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

sunrise  over  Lake  Tanganyika,  that  daylight  revealed 
lying  at  our  feet. 

Tanganyika  is  a  glorious  lake.  It  is  four  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  long  and  about  forty  wide;  with  the 
exception  of  Lake  Baikal  it  is  the  deepest  fresh-water 
lake  in  the  world,  for  soundings  of  over  two  thousand 
feet  have  been  taken.  It  is  twenty-two  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  above  the  sea.  It  is  a  great  stretch  of  blue 
water,  encircled  with  a  golden  rim  of  sand,  backed  by 
rocky  headlands  topped  with  a  fringe  of  crooked  trees. 
And  behind  the  headlands,  against  the  horizons,  were 
mountains. 

We  had  no  more  beautiful  hours  in  Africa  than  those 
late  afternoons  we  spent  upon  the  beach  watching  the 
women,  with  their  great  water  jars  upon  their  heads, 
go  back  and  forth,  climbing  the  winding  path  to  the  vil- 
lages upon  the  cliffs.  It  was  beauty  itself,  the  perfect 
loveliness  of  beauty  undespoiled.  But  it  was  beauty 
with  a  doom  on  its  bright  head,  for  already  the  white 
man  had  come.  There  were  steel  tracks  reaching  in 
from  the  west  to  Albertville,  and  across  the  lake  there 
were  tracks  stretching  east  to  the  coast  at  Dar  Es 
Salaam.  In  ten  years,  twenty  or  fifty,  civilization  and 
its  gauds  would  be  enthroned.  The  old  Africa  would  go. 

He  walked  the  Tanganyika  beach, 
A  slim  young  native,  unconcerned, 
The  wash  of  Tanganyika  round  his  feet, 
The  roar  of  Tanganyika  in  his  ears ; 
Behind  the  darkening  headlands  the  set  sun 
Flushed  sky  and  sand  with  amber  and  with  rose ; 
The  fringe  of  flat-topped  trees  upon  the  top 

49 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

Was  silhouetted  black; 

He  walked  serene,  wet  with  the  waves 

That  for  uncounted  ages  had  washed  out 

The  footprints  of  his  people  on  the  sands ; 

He  did  not  know  nor  feel  nor  hear 

The  wash  of  civilization  round  his  feet, 

The  roar  of  civilization  in  his  ears; 

He  did  not  know  that  he  was  doomed, 

He  did  not  know  that  soon 

The  cuckoo's  silver  call  would  hush  before  the  siren's  scream, 

Factories  would  rear  their  belching  necks  upon  the  heights 

And  poison  the  sweet  air ; 

The  trees  that  fed  his  frugal  fires  would  fall  for  fuel 

And  turning  wheels  make  gauds  and  gears  for  smooth-tongued 

men  to  sell ; 
Money  would  clink, 

His  solitude  would  be  a  prison  and  a  market  place 
Where  sweating  toil  wipes  sullen  brows 
And  dull  eyes  gape  at  reeling  films  depicting  scenes  afar. 
He  and  his  race  are  doomed ; 
The  ancient  land  is  doomed. 

The  captain  "ate"  us.  That  was  his  word,  not  ours. 
It  meant  that  our  meals,  served  on  the  deck  of  the  lake 
steamer  Baron  Dhanis,  by  our  boys  on  our  dishes,  and 
the  meals  of  the  twenty  other  passengers — Belgian  ad- 
ministrators, fiscal  agents,  judges,  missionaries — that 
we  accumulated  and  hospitably  accommodated  upon  a 
boat  with  staterooms  for  ten,  were  all  prepared  by  the 
captain's  mite  of  a  cook  in  a  galley  whose  confines 
resembled  a  Chinese  torture  box. 

His  piece  de  resistance  was  a  pig,  which  hung  fairly 
complete  from  the  rail  the  first  day  out.  No  Congo 
boat  is  accoutered  until  it  has  some  former  live  stock 

50 


GIANT  PALM  ON  TANGANYIKA 


[page  50] 


NATIVE  BOAT  ox  LAKE   TANGANYIKA 


[page  51] 


THE  TREE  AT  UJTJI  BENEATH  WHICH  STANLEY  MET  LIVINGSTONE 

[page  51] 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

hanging  like  a  thief  in  irons  at  the  cross  arms.  That  par- 
ticular pig  we  remembered  vividly.  We  had  the  last 
of  him  one  breakfast,  a  headcheese  effect,  served  with 
onions  and  mayonnaise.  Our  best  meal  was  the  four 
o'clock  chocolate,  which  was  rich  and  plentiful,  and  the 
captain,  a  genial  character  from  Sweden,  used  to 
chuckle  at  our  strange  passion  for  it. 

We  were  five  days  getting  to  the  north  end  of  the 
lake,  tying  up  for  two  of  them  at  Kigoma,  on  the  east 
shore,  in  what  used  to  be  German  East.  After  the  war 
it  was  Belgian  and  then  reapportioned  to  the  British. 
Four  miles  from  Kigoma  is  the  historic  tree  beneath 
which  Stanley  met  Livingstone.  My  great-grandfather 
used  to  talk  about  that  meeting,  and  I  had  always  pic- 
tured it  in  some  dark  and  damp  African  forest,  mos- 
quitoes humming  and  danger  threatening.  I  wished  my 
grandfather  could  have  seen  that  place  of  sunshine  and 
dancing  waves ! 

I  heard  here  for  the  first  time  Stanley's  exquisitely 
conventional  greeting  to  the  white  man  he  had  come  so 
far  to  find,  "Dr.  Livingstone,  I  believe?" 

Ujiji,  where  the  meeting  took  place,  is  a  native  settle- 
ment of  about  twenty-five  thousand  and  was  formerly 
a  great  Arab  trading  center  in  slaves  and  ivory.  The 
first  white  men  to  visit  Tanganyika — Burton  and  Speke 
— arrived  here  in  1858.  The  first  steamer  on  the  lake 
was  a  missionary  boat  launched  here  in  1884. 

At  Usumbura,  the  north  end  of  the  lake,  to  which  the 
Baron  Dhanis  eventually  brought  us,  we  camped  five 
days  waiting  for  the  two  hundred  porters  for  our  march 
north  through  the  mountains  to  Lake  Kivu.  We  had 

51 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

come  now  as  far  as  rail  and  boat  could  take  us.  We  had 
hopes  of  a  boat  on  Lake  Kivu,  for  a  government  launch 
made  the  round  of  the  lake  once  or  twice  a  month,  and 
to  avoid  waiting  for  it,  Monsieur  Ryckman,  the  com- 
missioner at  Usumbura,  authorized  us  to  use  it  whenever 
we  arrived,  if  we  would  pay  for  the  gasoline — but  the 
gasoline  was  lacking.  However,  it  was  ordered  and 
was  somewhere  on  the  road.  This  lent  considerable 
uncertainty  to  our  traveling,  but  uncertainty  is  a  con- 
dition of  safari  life.  We  had  left  our  last  telephone 
far  behind  at  Bukama  on  the  Congo — and  that  was 
broken.  There  was  nothing  quicker  now  than  the  black 
feet  of  a  runner. 

Our  wait  was  enlivened  by  visits  to  the  native  market 
which  was  held  early  every  morning  in  an  open  space 
about  a  mile  from  our  tents.  It  was  the  largest  and 
most  voluble  market  I  ever  saw  or  heard;  the  natives 
streamed  in  to  it  daily  from  every  direction;  from  the 
forest  came  the  firewood  venders,  from  the  cane  fields 
the  sellers  of  sugar  cane,  from  the  village  shambas  the 
possessors  of  eggs  and  grain  and  meal  and  chickens,  and 
from  the  lake  the  fisher  folk  with  baskets  on  their  heads 
— everything  was  carried  on  the  head — heaped  with  tiny 
silvery  fish,  as  microscopic  as  white  bait.  I  never  went 
through  the  market  but  I  found  somebody  picking  half 
a  thousand  of  those  fish  out  of  the  dust  after  a  jostling 
episode. 

Our  boys  went  to  this  market,  without,  or  against, 
orders,  with  a  persistency  worthy  of  Mary's  little  lamb. 
We  had  now  six  boys  and  a  cook.  We  paid  the  cook  two 
dollars  and  eighty  cents  a  month  and  food  money,  and 

52 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

out  of  that  the  cook  paid  his  helper.  Our  latest  boys 
we  paid  only  a  dollar  thirty-five  a  month  and  food 
money.  Each  boy  had  a  book  which  we  kept  for  him 
and  in  which  we  entered  whatever  he  drew  against  his 
wages.  Here  at  Usumbura  the  boys  were  drawing  lav- 
ishly and  one  day  we  found  why,  and  why  they  loved 
the  market  so. 

There  was  a  bar — a  row  of  huge  earthen  jugs  holding 
pombe,  the  native  banana  beer,  and  behind  the  jugs 
sat  the  barmaids  calling  their  wares.  There  were  two 
classes  of  service;  in  the  more  expensive  the  buyer  got 
his  beer  in  a  cup,  in  the  cheaper  he  had  a  pull  at  a  straw. 
Here  the  technic  was  for  the  buyer  to  draw  a  deep 
breath  and  suck  as  vehemently  as  possible  while  the 
vender  endeavored  instantly  to  choke  him  off  with  loud 
revilings. 

We  bought  interesting  baskets  here,  very  simple  cir- 
cular ones  with  rounded  covers  that  fitted  snugly.  We 
never  saw  this  shape  farther  on.  And  we  bought  many 
of  the  men's  bags  and  pouches,  of  tightly  knotted  fiber, 
sometimes  ornamented  with  knotted  fringe,  which  the 
men  wore  slung  over  a  shoulder  and  in  which  they  car- 
ried pipe  and  tobacco  and  food  and  knife  and  perhaps 
firesticks  and  money.  One  day  I  bought  a  very  elab- 
orate new  one  to  the  loud  lamentations  of  the  man's 
wife  who  had  just  finished  knotting  it,  and  now  saw 
herself  furnished  with  more  occupation  for  long  days 
to  come.  It  must  have  been  incredibly  tedious  and 
difficult. 

Another  diversion  of  our  wait  was  an  elephant  hunt 
on  which  the  administrator  took  us,  but  in  which  the 

53 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

elephants  failed  to  cooperate,  although  we  rose  at 
three,  bicycled  ten  miles  to  a  river,  and  then  walked  till 
five  o'clock  in  the  effort  to  meet  those  elephants  half- 
way. We  saw  beautiful  country,  elephant  spoor  several 
days  old,  but  nothing  alive  save  the  gleam  of  a  leopard 
or  serval  cat  and  the  gray  and  scarlet  of  the  talking 
parrots. 

All  the  excitement  of  that  day  had  occurred  in  the 
camp  after  our  departure.  For  some  days  we  had 
noticed  the  presence  of  what  might  be  called  Congo 
flappers  about  the  place,  provocative-eyed  young  things 
with  the  latest  cut  of  hair  and  the  latest  pattern  of 
Zanzibar  calico  knotted  beneath  their  smooth-skinned 
shoulders,  the  latest  sparkle  of  beads  and  anklets,  and 
these  flappers  were  lingering  about  the  cook-tent  un- 
doubtedly longer  than  it  took  to  sell  eggs  or  poultry. 
One  was  particularly  in  evidence. 

"Jim,"  said  Mr.  Bradley,  Jim  being  our  abbreviation 
for  Gimway,  a  white-toothed  roustabout  of  a  "boy," 
"Jim,  who  is  that  woman — who  is  she?" 

Jim's  English  was  usually  inadequate,  but  this  time 
he  was  primed. 

"Cook's  sister,"  said  he. 

"M'm,  cook's  sister  .  .  .  And  is  she,"  said  Mr.  Brad- 
ley, "by  any  chance  also  the  cook's  wife?" 

Jim  could  not  forbear  making  the  case  stronger. 
"Yes,  sare,  cook's  wife." 

"Well!"  said  Mr.  Bradley.  He  added  slowly  and 
impressively,  "She  must  not  stay  in  camp.  Tell  cook  he 
must  send  her  away.  We  do  not  take  women  with  us." 

"No,  sare,"  said  Jim  earnestly.    "We  take,  sare!" 

54 


PORTERS  ON  THE  MARCH 


[page  58] 


ALICE  ON  SAFARI 


[page  58] 


NATIVE  MARKET,  USUMBUHA,  LAKE  TANGANYIKA 


[page  53] 


NATIVE  BARMAIDS  AT  USUMBURA 


[page  53] 


IN  THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 

Somewhere  in  the  tents  Martha  and  I  snickered.  But 
the  champion  of  virtue  did  not  crack  a  smile. 

"No,  you  don't  take,"  said  he,  firmly.  "We — don't 
— take — any — women — on — this — expedition!" 

Jim  looked  blank.  .  .  .  He  must  have  thought  it  a 
white  man's  world.  .  .  .  "Send  her  away,"  repeated 
Herbert,  adamantly. 

She  went  away,  but  when  we  were  off  elephant  hunt- 
ing, she  came  back  again,  and  after  her  came  her  hus- 
band. He  came  with  a  whip,  the  kiboko  of  hippopota- 
mus hide,  and  dragged  her  out  of  the  cook-tent  and 
began  to  beat  and  choke  her.  The  outcries  brought 
Miss  Hall  from  her  tent,  and  she  shouted  vigorously  at 
the  man  to  stop  and  go  away,  but  he  paid  no  attention 
to  her  nor  to  the  boys.  The  cook  made  no  effort  to 
interfere  on  behalf  of  his  lady  love  and  the  husband  had 
apparently  no  animus  against  the  cook  but  directed  all 
his  feeling  and  blows  at  the  girl. 

Priscilla  was  prompt  and  intrepid.  She  got  her 
revolver  and  marched  out  with  it  in  her  hand.  "Tell 
him  to  go  away !"  she  said  vigorously  to  Kiani,  and  the 
vigor  and  the  revolver  had  their  effect.  The  man 
stopped,  the  girl  fled  crying  to  Miss  Hall,  the  boys 
talked  all  at  once  and  the  man  went  away.  Immediately 
the  girl  cheered  up  and  showed  every  intention  of  re- 
maining, but  finally  she  too  drifted  off  and  the  place 
thereof  knew  her  no  more. 

But  she  was  only  the  first  of  the  cook's  sisters.  It 
was  perfectly  extraordinary  how  our  line  of  march  coin- 
cided with  the  spread  of  his  family.  Invariably  the 
sisters  were  about  fifteen,  with  silky-lashed  eyes  and 

55 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

soft,  giggling  voices  and  very,  very  expensive  beads. 

Changing  the  cook  did  not  change  the  phenomenon. 
It  seemed  characteristic  of  the  Congo  impishi  to  have 
sisters  in  every  tribe. 

The  administrator  at  Usumbura  had  sent  out  to  the 
chiefs  for  porters,  and  early  on  the  morning  of  October 
14  we  saw  the  long  line  of  blacks  descending  upon  us 
and  felt  that  we  were  on  safari  at  last.  We  had  come 
now  as  far  as  rail  and  steam  could  take  us,  and  had 
nothing  now  to  depend  on  but  our  feet. 


CHAPTER  V 

ON  SAFARI 

A  SUDDEN  ELEPHANT  HUNT;  MARTHA 
GETS  A  TUSKER 

IN  the  Congo,  the  Eastern  Congo,  you  sit  upon  a 
mountain  peak  and  gaze  out  to  other  mountain  peaks, 
like  pastels  with  distance,  and  you  do  not  wonder  how 
you  are  going  to  those  other  peaks — you  know.  You 
walk.  And  everything  that  you  want,  tents,  food, 
clothes,  camp  equipment,  walks  with  you  on  the  heads 
of  black  carriers. 

This  caravan  life  is  called  being  on  safari.  A  safari 
day  begins  early — four  or  three,  by  starshine  or  moon- 
shine or  black  night.  It  takes  courage  to  throw  back 
the  blankets — those  African  highlands  give  winter-cold 
nights — and  grope  for  the  candle  lantern,  which  has 
always  changed  position  since  you  staked  it  painstak- 
ingly at  bedtime,  and  then  plunge  shiveringly  into 
khaki.  As  you  dress  you  hurriedly  thrust  the  discards 
into  the  green  linen  bags  beside  the  cot,  and  your  final 
deed  is  to  roll  up  your  bedding,  force  that  into  the  bag, 
cap  it  with  your  linen  bath  tub  and  enameled  wash 
basin,  and  add  any  little  odds  and  ends  left  out,  ere  you 
sally  forth  to  breakfast. 

The  table  is  outside  in  the  blackness  of  tropic  morn- 
ing, candles  glimmering  wanly  upon  it.  Before  you 

57 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

are  through  with  the  prunes  or  the  pineapple  or  the 
oranges  you  are  in  a  gray  gauze  world,  from  which  veil 
after  veil  of  gauze  is  being  swiftly  withdrawn,  and  by 
the  last  bite  of  bacon  or  burnt  toast  and  marmalade,  a 
scarlet  fire  is  streaming  over  the  mountain  tops  and  a 
rush  of  light  is  mocking  the  feeble  candles. 

Behind  you  the  tents  have  been  taken  down  and 
rolled  up  in  bundles  for  carrying,  the  bags  and  boxes 
brought  out,  arid  everything  made  ready  for  the  march. 
The  invariable  last  thing  is  the  breakfast  dishes,  which 
the  boys  do  unhurriedly,  conversationally,  and  bring,  in 
trickles  of  two  or  three,  while  you  stand  guard  over  the 
empty  boxes  and  keep  off  the  porters,  who  yearn  to 
acquire  the  boxes  in  their  empty  state  and  make  off  with 
them. 

Our  porters  at  Usumbura  came  in  four  lots,  from 
different  villages,  with  a  headman  from  each  village. 
The  porter's  status  seems  to  be  that  of  a  voluble  chattel. 
I  don't  believe  any  one  ever  volunteers  for  the  position. 
In  the  Congo,  porters  are  paid  half  a  franc  a  day,  which 
was  three  and  a  half  cents  for  us,  and  ten  centimes  a 
day  for  posho,  or  food-money.  The  day's  march  is 
about  four  hours,  though  often  more,  and  I  have  known 
it  to  be  nine,  and  each  man  carries  about  forty  to  sixty 
pounds  on  his  head.  Our  chop  boxes  were  all  made  up 
in  weights  for  carrying,  and  we  tried  to  have  all  the 
loads  of  equal  weight,  but  of  course  there  were  dis- 
crepancies. 

There  was  a  strong  interest  taken  by  those  porters 
in  the  loads  they  got  that  first  morning  of  our  march, 
for  each  man  carried  the  same  one  for  the  rest  of  the 

58 


ON  SAFARI 

trip.  With  an  unerring  instinct  for  light  boxes,  they 
surrounded  the  fly  tent  where  we  were  breakfasting  in 
the  gray  dawn  and  the  meal  was  made  hectic  by  having 
to  whirl  about  and  frustrate  the  long,  black,  snakelike 
arms  reaching  under  the  canvas  to  purloin  some  un- 
ready box.  We  finally  got  under  way  about  seven- 
thirty  the  first  morning,  with  a  triumphant  blaring  of 
the  curved  horns  the  leaders  loved  to  blow.  The  music 
resembles  a  Scotch  bagpipe  crossed  with  a  mule,  vocal, 
and  a  really  musical  safari  en  route  sounds  like  a  cal- 
liope gone  mad. 

We  Bradleys  went  ahead,  to  lead,  or  rather  discover, 
the  way,  the  five-year-old  Alice  in  her  basket  carried 
by  two  natives.  After  us  came  the  long  line  of  blacks, 
two  hundred  of  them,  a  picturesque  frieze  against  the 
sky  line,  in  girding  goatskins  and  beads,  on  each  high- 
held  head  its  load.  Mr.  Akeley  followed  at  the  end,  to 
see  that  no  loads  were  left,  and  to  have  the  opportunity 
of  taking  motion  pictures  without  halting  the  safari. 
We  had  bought  bicycles  at  Elizabethville,  for  no  mules 
were  to  be  had,  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  bringing  ani- 
mals in  through  the  deadly  tsetse  fly-belt,  and  though 
we  knew  nothing  of  the  route,  except  that  it  mounted 
over  two  thousand  feet  in  the  eight  days,  every  bit  that 
we  could  ride  would  be  a  help.  For  Alice,  Mr.  Akeley 
had  devised  and  practically  built  a  seat  low  on  the  front 
wheel  of  one  bicycle,  and  that  was  ridden  by  her  boy 
Mablanga  who  was  strong,  reliable,  and  utterly  devoted. 
She  loved  this  way  of  traveling  more  than  any  motor, 
at  home,  and  much  better  than  the  basket,  carried  by 
two  natives,  to  which  she  was  generally  consigned. 

59 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

When  riding  was  impossible,  the  porters  carried  the 
wheels  on  their  heads.  It  had  been  said  that  one  can 
ride  all  over  Africa  on  a  wheel,  for  the  native  paths, 
padded  smooth  by  generations  of  bare  feet,  wind  from 
village  to  village.  In  the  administered  territories  the 
chiefs  are  required  to  have  a  certain  amount  of  work 
done  on  the  paths,  cutting  the  side  grass  and  so  forth, 
so  the  ways  are  improved,  and  even  a  few  miles  of  riding 
on  a  long  march  is  tremendously  worth  while. 

I  had  no  idea  that  I  was  a  good  rider — indeed,  I  had 
no  idea  that  I  could  remember  how  to  ride  a  bicycle  at 
all — until  I  had  the  choice  between  riding  down  a  moun- 
tain and  walking.  Then  I  took  goat  trails  and  dried 
courses  of  brooks,  rock  slides  and  thickets  with  a  dash 
and  abandon  that  covered  me  with  bruises,  but  certainly 
covered  the  ground. 

Our  first  day's  march  from  Tanganyika  was  a  long 
one,  twenty-three  kilometers,  and  the  road  that  day  was 
good,  so  we  bicyclists  reached  the  rest-house,  Koto-Koto, 
at  noon  and  sought  shelter  from  the  sun  under  the 
thatched  roof,  where  it  was  always  cool,  and  proceeded 
to  wait  for  the  safari.  We  had  brought  water  bottles 
and  some  lunch  in  a  bag,  and  we  bought  bananas  from 
the  chief,  who  promptly  presented  himself  with  the 
inevitable  present  of  a  chicken. 

These  presents  were  a  trial  from  the  moment  they 
arrived,  heads  hanging,  legs  tied,  to  the  time  of  their 
assassination  and  ultimate  appearance  upon  the  table. 
To  become  a  present,  a  rooster  must  have  lived  long  past 
all  reasonable  expectation  of  a  Methuselah  and  appar- 
ently subsisted  all  those  years  upon  what  sustenance  he 

60 


PERSONAL  ATTENDANTS  ON  THE  MARCH — CAMERA,  GUN  AND  WHEEL 

[page  60] 


ALICE  AND  MAUI.AXGA 


[page  60] 


ALICE  AND  HER  TENT 


[page  61] 


PORTERS  WAITING  FOR  RATIONS 


[page  611 


ON  SAFARI 

could  pick  up  within  the  radius  of  a  two-inch  tether. 
Nothing  stringier  or  more  sinewy  exists. 

In  the  Congo  you  shake  hands  with  a  chief  twice, 
once  pressing  the  hand  and  once  the  thumb ;  so  we  each 
shook  hands  solemnly,  even  the  five-year-old,  whom  he 
greeted  as  the  Sultana  with  special  consideration. 
Alice's  presence  with  us  was  a  perfectly  simple  thing  to 
the  natives;  evidently  Alice  and  I  were  favorites  and 
if  I  left  her  at  home  the  other  wives  would  naturally 
poison  her !  The  mother  of  Musinga,  the  great  king  of 
Ruanda,  is  credited  with  having  poisoned  six  of  his 
little  half  brothers  to  clear  the  throne  for  her  son. 

Our  tent  boys  understood  the  relation  of  the  party 
and  the  white  man's  ways,  but  to  the  natives  I  was 
always  the  "Wife-with-the-Child."  One  chief  asked 
me  how  many  wives  my  husband  had  at  home — he  him- 
self had  sixty-five  around  his  different  villages — and  I 
really  felt  I  should  be  imperiling  my  husband's  position 
in  his  eyes  if  I  attempted  any  explanation.  I  have  never 
yet  revealed  just  what  I  did  say,  but  that  chief  was  im- 
pressed. 

That  night  and  several  others  we  slept  in  the  grass 
rest-houses  built  for  traveling  Belgian  officials,  for 
these  looked  fresh  and  there  seemed  no  danger  from 
the  dreaded  kimpootoo  or  spirillum  tick.  We  always 
had  our  nets  over  us  in  those  houses,  although  we  rarely 
saw  a  mosquito.  The  freedom  from  flies  and  mosquitoes 
was  one  of  the  joys  of  Africa,  contrary  to  every  one's 
belief  about  it.  Sleeping  in  the  houses  did  away  with 
putting  up  tents,  and  when  the  porters  came  marching 
in,  horns  blowing,  although  the  sweat  was  running  down 

61 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

their  black  skins,  we  had  only  to  see  to  sorting  the  stuff. 

The  moment  a  porter  arrives  he  sheds  his  load  and 
rushes  to  find  a  sleeping  place  in  one  of  the  huts.  Your 
duty  is  to  stand  over  the  loads  and  see  that  they  are  left 
in  order  and  the  bags  sent  where  they  belong.  A  head- 
man does  this  for  you,  but  there  were  no  safari  head- 
men in  the  Congo,  and  we  all  pitched  in  and  did  a  little 
of  everything.  About  the  time  camp  is  settled  and  the 
bags  and  boxes  distributed,  the  porters  have  brought  in 
firewood  and  water,  the  cook  has  his  fire  going  between 
the  three  stones,  and  you  unlock  the  food  boxes  and  hand 
out  the  precious  rice  and  butter.  Curried  chicken  was 
the  usual  mainstay  of  our  meals,  with  rice  as  only  the 
East  can  cook  rice ;  if  in  camp,  we  invariably  began  with 
soup,  but  on  the  march  our  first  course  was  hors 
d'ceuvres  of  sardine  and  coldslaw.  We  could  carry  cab- 
bage for  days,  and  we  had  potatoes,  both  white  and 
sweet.  When  no  fresh  green  vegetables  were  available 
we  had  asparagus  in  tins  or  fried  bananas.  Our 
dessert  was  any  fruit  available,  pineapple  or  papaya, 
with  crackers  and  cheese  and  jam.  The  Congo  variant 
of  pancake  with  honey  or  jam  was  another  resource. 
By  the  time  that  dinner  is  under  way  the  chief  is  gener- 
ally ready  with  posho  for  the  men,  usually  plantains  or 
coarse  meal  tied  up  in  banana  leaves,  and  the  porters  line 
up  opposite  and  voice  their  objections. 

Life  among  the  porters  is  always  a  commotion,  but 
posho  time  sounds  like  a  riot.  We  grew  very  casual 
about  noises.  An  outcry  that  would  have  blanched  us 
in  America  did  not  turn  our  heads.  The  conversational 
qualities  of  porters  are  unequaled  even  by  Venetian 

62 


ON  SAFARI 

gondoliers,  but  actual  fighting  is  rare.  We  had  only 
one  experience  on  the  way.  After  the  porters  get  their 
food  they  go  back  to  the  grass  huts  and  wisps  of  smoke 
curl  up  from  many  fires  and  the  chatter,  chatter  goes  on, 
unending,  in  that  strange  tongue,  which,  being  mean- 
ingless to  you,  becomes  a  part  of  the  day's  background. 
And  you  eat  your  own  meal  out  of  doors,  in  the  lovely 
hour  of  waning  light,  and  sit  and  watch  the  sun  sink 
like  a  flaming  disk  behind  the  mountains,  while  the 
crickets  and  night  noises  begin,  and  a  swift  darkness 
pours  over  the  land  and  the  stars  blaze  overhead.  And 
then  you  go  to  bed  remembering  that  at  four  you  will 
hear  a  call. 

From  Tanganyika  to  Kivu  we  followed  the  Rusisi 
River,  which  drains  out  of  the  southern  end  of  Lake 
Kivu,  and  we  crossed  that  river  sometimes  half  a  dozen 
times  a  day.  The  way  of  our  crossing  was  simple. 
There  were  no  canoes,  no  bridges,  and  the  current  was 
strong.  We  went  over  on  the  backs  of  the  nearest 
natives — our  own  boys,  if  no  one  else  was  available,  but 
generally  we  impressed  a  near-by  loiterer.  The  first 
time  I  mounted  I  felt  the  qualms  of  the  first  man  that 
ever  ate  an  oyster,  but  in  time  I  learned  to  survey  my 
mount  critically  for  strength  and  endurance  and  then 
spring  lightly  upon  his  shoulders  and  steady  myself  by 
his  topknot. 

The  country  through  which  we  traveled  was  beautiful, 
always  among  mountains,  with  wide  outlooks  over  for- 
ested valleys  and  plains.  There  were  tremendous  num- 
bers of  the  dark,  striking  euphorbia  trees  and  of  the 
beautiful  scarlet-flowered  Kaffir-boom,  which  we  had 

63 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

seen  all  along  the  way  from  the  Cape.  The  branches 
were  invariably  bare,  a  silvery  gray;  and  a  network  of 
these  trees,  gray  branched,  with  brilliant  flowers  flam- 
ing against  a  sky  of  burning  blue,  is  one  of  my  vivid 
memories. 

On  the  second  day's  march  our  path  was  crossed  for 
the  first  time  by  safari  ants.  These  are  the  traveling 
scavengers  of  Africa,  crossing  the  continent  in  endless 
streams,  consuming  every  dead  and  living  thing  that 
falls  into  their  clutches.  When  the  column  pours 
through  a  native  village,  the  villagers  in  the  line  of 
march  decamp  at  top  speed,  and  the  invaders  render 
them  a  valuable  service  by  cleaning  up  the  place,  from 
fleas  to  refuse.  They  can  kill  a  rat  and  pick  it  to  the 
bones,  it  is  said,  in  two  minutes. 

The  column  we  first  saw  was  like  a  black  ribbon 
winding  across  the  path,  a  ribbon  about  four  inches 
in  width.  It  was  a  living,  seething  stream  of  ants. 
Along  the  sides  were  the  soldiers,  big  fellows  with  pin- 
cerlike  jaws,  holding  the  lines,  preventing  any  out- 
pourings and  attacking  any  enemy,  while  down  between 
the  lines,  in  a  tunnel-like  groove,  the  unending  army 
poured  along  in  such  dense  crowdings  that  some  were 
scrambling  on  the  backs  of  the  others.  Straws  that  we 
dropped  across  the  line  were  instantly  seized  and  maneu- 
vered into  position  and  carried  on  out  of  the  way.  When 
we  stood  a  foot  or  two  away  the  soldier  ants  did  not 
bother  us,  but  as  we  moved  nearer  they  streamed  out 
with  menacing  little  jaws.  When  we  poked  at  them 
with  a  stick  some  went  for  the  stick  but  others  went 
straight  for  our  boots  and  up  our  puttees. 

64 


ON  SAFARI 

A  bite  is  a  vivid  sensation.  I  have  seen  a  hardened 
porter,  one  who  stood  about  on  charred  wood  fires  until 
his  feet  smoked  without  appearing  to  experience  any 
discomfort,  leap  like  a  deer  when  a  safari  ant  got  him  in 
its  bulldog  grip.  The  numbers  seemed  endless.  We 
watched  that  column  for  two  hours  that  first  day  not 
knowing  that  three  times  more  that  day  we  were  to  cross 
them,  and  that  scarcely  a  day  thereafter  would  we  be 
without  a  sight  of  them,  and  all  those  hours  the  stream  of 
mites  was  like  a  racing  mill  stream  of  black  waters  surg- 
ing down  that  groove.  Thousands — millions — billions. 
I  could  understand  why  sleeping  men,  surprised,  had 
been  swiftly  bitten  to  death. 

Once,  at  Lulenga,  a  column  passed  near  our  camp, 
continuing  for  seven  days,  and  not  for  an  hour  at  day 
or  night  was  there  any  cessation  of  that  seething  stream 
of  them.  But,  seen  in  time,  there  was  no  danger.  One 
could  step  over  the  column  and  be  safe. 

It  was  the  third  day  out  that  Martha  Miller  killed 
her  elephant.  We  were  in  camp  on  a  high  bluff  when 
the  elephants  were  seen  feeding  in  a  plain  about  two 
miles  away.  It  was  four-thirty,  and  the  light  would  be 
gone  only  too  soon,  so  we  set  off,  with  guides,  guns,  and 
cameras,  at  a  grilling  pace.  We  reached  a  hill  above 
the  plains  and  crept  cautiously  forward  through  the 
bush  till  on  the  brow  we  had  a  splendid  view  of  the 
elephants.  There  were  six  of  them  about  two  hundred 
yards  below  us,  five  full  grown  and  one  smaller,  all  feed- 
ing utterly  unaware  of  us,  their  trunks  swinging  in 
the  bundles  of  grass,  their  tusks  gleaming  against  the 
dark  skins.  There  is  something  prehistoric  looking 

65 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

about  a  wild  elephant  that  makes  him  seem  unreal.  He 
is  a  left-over  from  another  age.  His  very  size  is  archaic. 

They  were  a  magnificent  sight,  the  six  of  them,  and 
we  were  able  to  watch  them  under  unusual  conditions. 
It  was  a  good  enough  light  for  a  picture,  Mr.  Akeley 
thought,  and  we  crouched  behind  bushes  and  watched 
while  he  maneuvered  forward  and  took  some  film.  The 
light  was  going  fast  and  the  elephants  working  away 
from  us  across  the  plain.  If  we  were  to  have  any  shoot- 
ing it  would  have  to  be  in  a  hurry,  so  we  crept  forward 
after  Mr.  Akeley,  until  we  were  about  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  dark  shapes  that  were  growing  darker  every 
instant.  Mr.  Akeley  picked  one  for  me  to  shoot  at 
and  one  for  Miss  Miller.  The  men  were  to  follow  our 
shots  with  their  heavy  guns. 

When  he  said  "Fire,"  the  bull  I  was  trying  for  was 
swinging  about  in  the  brush,  and  my  only  chance  was 
the  head  shot.  I  tried  to  place  it  low,  guided  by  the 
glimmer  of  the  tusks,  and  I  thought  I  had  succeeded, 
for  he  staggered,  and  I  thought  he  was  down,  but  he 
recovered  and  made  off,  although  my  husband  and  Mr. 
Akeley  opened  instant  fire  and  Mr.  Akeley  was  sure  he 
had  placed  five  shots  in  the  animal. 

Through  the  cannonading  I  heard  Martha  saying, 
"Mine's  down,"  and  so  he  was.  She  had  placed  a 
splendid  side  shot  through  the  ear.  She  started  to  fire 
at  the  black  dots  of  escaping  elephants  when  hers  got 
up  again,  and  was  then  brought  down  for  good.  We 
cut  about  in  a  circuit  and  made  our  way  to  him.  He 
seemed  enormous  as  he  lay  there.  There  was  something 
sad  about  the  helplessness  of  his  great  bulk.  The  only 

66 


ON  SAFARI 

reconciling  thought  is  that  the  elephant  is  doomed  any- 
way, and  this  was  a  quick  death. 

It  was  so  dark  that  we  turned  back  immediately  to 
camp.  We  heard  the  wounded  elephant  trumpeting 
and  believed  we  should  find  him  dead  in  the  morning.  I 
hoped  so,  for  his  sake  and  my  own,  for  I  hated  to  think 
of  a  wounded  elephant  coming  to  a  slow  death,  and, 
now  that  I  had  wounded  him,  I  wanted  those  tusks  of 
his.  But  the  night  rains  washed  out  every  vestige  of 
track,  and  the  natives  sent  next  morning  to  reconnoiter 
could  not  be  stimulated  by  any  offer  of  reward.  They 
circled  about  and  ended  near  the  other  elephant,  where 
they  wanted  meat.  But,  however  much  we  regretted 
the  escape  of  Adoniram,  as  I  christened  my  lost 
elephant,  we  were  elated  over  Martha's  good  luck,  and 
had  a  dinner  that  night  in  her  honor. 

The  men  spent  the  next  day  cutting  out  some  skin 
and  the  ivory.  It  was  a  single  tusker,  weighing  about 
fifty-eight  pounds.  The  other  tusk  had  been  broken 
off  from  an  old  bullet  wound,  and  there  were  sores  from 
wounds  on  his  body.  The  men  had  a  hard  time  getting 
work  from  the  natives,  who  were  interested  only  in  get- 
ting meat,  and  whenever  the  white  men  were  obliviously 
occupied  the  men  would  sneak  up  and  hack  off  choice 
morsels,  to  be  conveyed  by  the  grapevine  route  to  the 
outskirts.  There  was  one  leprous-looking  old  chief  who 
had  a  huge  wash  basin  and  a  total  disinclination  to  work, 
and  one  of  the  brightest  moments  of  the  day  was  a  sud- 
den vision  of  that  chief  sailing  through  the  air,  followed 
by  his  basin,  as  my  husband  turned  and  caught  him 
making  a  felonious  assault  upon  the  elephant. 

67 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

No  work,  no  meat,  was  the  order  of  the  day,  until  the 
elephant  was  turned  over  to  the  chiefs  and  headmen 
for  distribution.  There  was  feasting  and  dancing  all 
that  night  and  the  dark  was  lit  with  little  fires  over 
which  the  meat  hung  drying  while  in  the  smoky  gleam 
the  dark  shoulders  jostled  and  bare  feet  stamped  in 
rhythmic  frenzy. 

The  next  day  we  went  on,  abandoning  the  wounded 
elephant,  something  which  we  would  not  have  done  un- 
der usual  conditions ;  but  until  the  gorillas  were  secured 
we  could  not  afford  to  waste  time  on  anything  else. 

That  day  the  men  were  wild  and  hilarious  after  the 
dancing  of  the  night  before  and  refused  to  go  further 
than  an  old  rest-house,  which  we  reached  at  ten-thirty 
in  the  morning.  The  rains,  which  were  happening  vehe- 
mently and  regularly  every  afternoon  or  night  now, 
had  turned  the  red  clay  paths  to  indescribable  glue,  but 
another  night  of  rain  wasn't  going  to  make  them  any 
easier.  The  offer  of  double  pay  had  no  effect,  so  we 
put  up  our  tents,  as  the  house  was  old  enough  to  be 
unsafe  because  of  the  danger  from  infection.  The 
porters  went  gayly  off  for  an  antelope  hunt. 

Soon  we  heard  them  coming  back  in  angry  excite- 
ment, dragging  a  man  along  with  blows  and  yells.  One 
of  the  porters  had  a  cut  in  his  forehead,  made  by  this 
man's  arrow,  and  he  said  the  man  had  attacked  him 
purposely.  The  man  said  it  was  an  accident.  That  was 
as  much  as  we  could  make  out  with  our  inadequate 
Swahili  and  our  boy's  fragmentary  misinterpreting. 
The  prisoner  was  not  one  of  our  porters  but  one  of  half 
a  dozen  carriers  coming  through  with  gasoline  for  the 

68 


REST  HOUSE  AND  CHIEF'S  HOUSE  IN  THE  RUSISI  MOUNTAINS 

[page  68] 


MARTHA  MILLER  AND  HER  ELEPHANT 


[page  68] 


ON  SAFARI 

Kivu  boat — the  gasoline  we  were  delighted  to  know  was 
arriving. 

The  only  thing  to  do  under  the  circumstances  was  to 
take  the  man  along  under  guard  to  the  white  adminis- 
trator at  Kivu,  four  days  away,  and  we  told  the  head- 
men to  guard  him  and  keep  the  men  from  hurting  him, 
and  a  little  later  Herbert  and  I  went  down  to  the  huts 
to  see  what  was  happening.  The  porters  were  swarm- 
ing like  angry  bees  in  front  of  the  prisoner's  hut,  and 
two  hundred  angry  porters  sound  like  a  Russian  village 
in  its  daily  revolution. 

The  hut  seemed  to  be  full  of  them,  so  Herbert  and  I 
crawled  in  to  investigate  and  found  the  prisoner,  moan- 
ing and  crying,  tied  with  cruel  tightness,  while  about 
him  bent  several  blacks  in  the  act  of  desisting  from 
whatever  they  had  been  doing  before  our  arrival.  We 
laid  the  law  down  again,  had  them  give  him  food  and 
drink  and  tie  him  decently,  and  ordered  the  headmen 
to  stand  guard  and  be  responsible  for  keeping  the  rest 
out,  promising  to  come  down  in  the  morning  and  see 
how  they  had  followed  instructions. 

That  sounded  all  right,  but  we  hadn't  the  slightest 
force  to  back  us  up.  In  British  East  a  hunting  safari 
has  a  couple  of  armed  askaris  to  maintain  discipline. 
We  had  our  headmen,  wild  defiant  creatures,  and  a  tiny 
black  soldier  from  the  garrison  at  Usumbura,  who  was 
a  child  in  the  hands  of  those  headmen.  There  was  a 
furious  storm  that  night,  the  thunder  muttered  and 
rolled  and  crashed  and  the  two  hundred  porters'  voices 
rose  and  fell  with  muttering  and  roarings  like  the  thun- 
der till  I  went  to  sleep  at  last. 

69 


I  woke  suddenly;  out  in  the  blackness  among  those 
porters,  some  one  was  screaming  horribly.  It  was  over 
in  a  moment;  the  shrill  high  voice  was  drowned  in  a 
babel  of  frenzied  sound  ...  It  did  not  come  again. 

I  didn't  know  what  to  do;  to  go  and  rouse  Herbert 
would  be  to  have  him  go  down  alone  among  those  two 
hundred  crazy  blacks.  Mr.  Akeley  had  gone  to  bed 
before  dinner  with  fever.  While  they  wouldn't  have 
the  courage  to  touch  a  white  man  in  the  daytime,  there 
might  be  danger,  at  night,  from  a  spear  in  the  back. 
Many  of  them  had  the  filed  teeth  of  the  legraded  can- 
nibal tribes.  And,  whatever  was  done,  was  done.  And 
very  likely  nothing  was  done — the  porters  always 
sounded  like  a  riot. 

I  tried  to  dismiss  it  and  after  a  time  I  went  to  sleep 
again.  In  the  morning  the  man  was  gone.  There  were 
three  stories  given  us  to  explain  this.  The  first  was 
that  he  had  escaped  in  the  night,  without  any  one's  dis- 
covering it.  That  was  a  remarkable  achievement,  since 
the  man  was  tied  and  the  headmen  were  in  the  tent 
choking  the  entrance,  and  the  entire  safari  was  awake 
all  night.  The  second  story  was  that  he  had  just  that 
moment  got  away,  and  several  of  the  porters  with 
spears  were  staging  a  little  retrieving  party  and  run- 
ning about  the  woodland  looking  behind  rocks  and 
bushes  for  as  much  as  ten  minutes.  The  third  story, 
told  furtively  by  a  frightened  boy,  was  that  they  had 
killed  the  man  in  the  night  and  eaten  him. 

We  never  knew. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

LAKE  Kivu;  THE  GORILLAS  AT  KATANA; 
IN  CAMP  AT  KISSENYI 

Wr  stood  on  a  hill  top  overlooking  Lake  Kivu,  feel- 
ing we  wer  ook'  a4  1<°  upon  the  promised  land. 
For  months  .  e  ha  Ireameu  of  s  '  ig  this  lake,  re- 
ported the  most  beautiful  in  Africa,  t  was  the  last  to 
be  discovered  of  the  large  central  Af,  ?an  lakes.  Ru- 
mors of  its  existence  had  been  brought  to  Livingstone 
at  Ujiji  by  Arab  slavers,  but  the  first  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  it  was  obtained  in  1894  by  Count  Grotzen,  who 
visited  its  northern  end.  We  were  the  first  Americans 
to  reach  its  shores. 

All  that  day,  the  eighth  of  the  safari,  we  climbed  end- 
lessly, higher  and  higher  over  the  last  great  barrier  of 
mountains.  We  had  crossed  the  pastoral  basins  on  the 
highlands,  an  African  Switzerland  where  we  wound 
among  grassy  slopes  dotted  with  hundreds  of  native 
cattle,  picturesque  black  and  white  creatures,  with  wide 
branching  horns;  past  lush  marshes,  where  the  golden- 
crested  crane  were  preening;  past  shambas  of  bananas 
rustling  their  suave  fronds — an  upland  paradise  for  the 
dwellers  in  the  little  grass  huts — then  on,  up  and  down 
and  up  again  in  switchback  progress  among  the  hills. 

They  are  everlasting,  those  hills  which  surround  Kivu, 

71 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  they  are  extraordinary.  They  are  grass-grown, 
innocent  of  forest  or  deforesting,  curving  crests  of  vel- 
vet softness  between  the  shadowy  mountains  and  the 
gleaming  lake. 

Kivu  has  a  beauty  like  nothing  I  have  known.  And  I 
saw  it  first  in  a  moment  of  sheer  magic — a  black  storm 
cloud  scudding  across  the  lake  with  a  purple  drive  of 
rain  into  waters  that  held  every  answering  gleam  of 
storm  and  sky — purple  and  jade  and  peacock  blue 
against  a  silver  mist  of  cloud  shot  with  rainbows;  and 
beyond  the  storm,  sunshine — sunshine  ineffably  tender, 
ineffably  radiant,  shining  upon  those  fairy  hills  and  en- 
chanted mountains. 

The  lake  is  the  very  summit  of  Africa,  almost  five 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  To  the  north  the  country 
drains  into  Lake  Edward  and  so  to  the  Nile,  to  the 
east  into  Victoria  Nyanza,  to  the  west  into  the  Congo 
basin,  and  the  waters  of  the  lake  itself  run  south  through 
the  Rusisi  River  down  to  Tanganyika. 

The  lake  is  deep,  over  two  thousand  feet  in  places, 
and  there  is  not  a  crocodile  in  it.  We  went  down  to  the 
southeastern  end,  to  Changugu,  and  sent  a  runner  for 
the  little  launch,  which  was  across  at  Bukavu. 

Changugu  is  simply  one  of  the  tiny  outposts  that  keep 
the  white  man's  way  open — a  garrison  of  about  twenty 
native  soldiers  and  a  Belgian  officer.  But  Changugu 
was  more  than  that.  It  was  a  home.  It  was  Lieutenant 
Keyser  and  Madame  Keyser  and  their  little  son,  Jean- 
Jean.  They  received  this  astonishing  invasion  with  such 
cordial  hospitality  that  our  cook  took  a  complete  vaca- 
tion and  the  children  played  so  happily — despite  the 

72 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

difficulties  of  language — that  when  the  launch  came 
they  parted  with  frank  tears. 

The  launch  had  space  for  our  luggage  in  the  hold,  our 
boys  in  the  bow,  and  our  steamer  chairs  under  cover  at 
the  stern.  We  were  three  days  upon  it,  for  the  captain 
traveled  only  in  the  morning  on  account  of  the  storm 
which  came  each  afternoon.  It  was  the  last  of  October 
now,  the  height  of  the  fall  rains. 

The  first  day  we  tied  up  at  Bukavu,  on  the  southwest- 
ern shore,  and  camped  upon  the  banks.  The  rain  did 
not  come  until  late,  and  all  afternoon  the  native  women 
danced  before  our  tents.  They  danced  in  a  half  circle, 
advancing,  receding,  swaying,  clapping,  all  to  a  monoto- 
nous singsong  of  weird  chants,  while  the  few  men  who 
danced  did  a  muscular  solo  performance  before  them. 

It  was  jazz  in  its  own  home  town.  It  was  not  the 
shimmy,  but  it  was  a  recognizable  toddle,  and  there  were 
some  other  things  that  even  our  younger  set  haven't  dis- 
covered yet.  There  was  one  little  offering  entitled 
"The  Dance  of  the  Young  Girls,"  which  I  piously  hope 
was  misnamed,  for  half  the  participants  joggled 
through  it  with  "totos"  (babies)  slung  in  goat  skins 
on  their  backs.  They  were  not  enticing  looking  young 
girls  and  they  were  clumsy  appearing  in  the  goat  skins 
they  wore  bunched  about  their  waists  out  of  deference 
to  European  ideas.  They  were  the  Wania-Bongo.  But 
there  was  one  remarkable  woman,  a  visitor,  the  wife 
of  the  cannibal  chief,  Kabaka,  one  of  the  Waregga. 

She  was  of  royal  blood  herself,  the  wife  who  gave  the 
chief  his  heir,  they  said,  and  she  was  certainly  the  most 
royal  looking  creature  I  saw  in  Africa,  with  the  lines 

73 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

of  a  Greek  statue  and  the  perfect  aplomb  of  one,  too. 
She  discarded  her  goat  skins  and  appeared  in  her  royal 
regalia  of  copper  armlets  and  leg-rings,  with  beaded 
necklaces  and  a  trifle  of  girdle.  Her  skin  was  not  black 
but  a  gorgeous  coppery  brown,  and  she  had  the  carriage 
which  is  supposed  to  belong  to  a  duchess  but  which  is 
really  the  perquisite  of  carrying  a  huge  water  jar  in 
calm  balance  on  your  head  all  your  life. 

And  she  had  filed  teeth,  one  of  the  signs  of  cannibal- 
istic habits.  It  is  denied  that  cannibalism  exists  now 
to  any  extent  among  the  natives,  but  I  heard  that  day 
of  a  village  back  of  the  mountains  which  had  made  a 
raid  upon  another  village,  and,  in  the  moment  of  ex- 
cited triumph,  consumed  its  natives.  In  the  light  of 
that  information,  and  with  the  memory  of  the  missing 
porter,  I  looked  upon  all  filed  teeth  with  a  certain  grue- 
some interest.  At  the  least  they  were  a  symbol  of  the 
good  old  days! 

A  Congo  administrator  told  me  that  fifteen  years  ago 
he  used  to  see  slaves  destined  for  eating  led  from  hut 
to  hut  for  prospective  purchasers  to  chalk  out  upon  the 
living  flesh  the  particular  cut  they  desired.  Of  course 
that  was  only  in  certain  tribes,  and  it  was  fifteen  years 
ago,  and  where  the  white  man  has  power  it  is  finished. 
But  back  of  the  mountains  is  still  black  man's  Africa, 
and  little  can  really  be  known  of  what  goes  on  there. 

It  was  the  business  of  the  young  agent  territorial  at 
Bukavu,  Monsieur  Massart,  to  travel  from  tribe  to 
tribe,  sometimes  for  months  at  a  time,  visiting  the  chiefs, 
persuading  the  refractory,  strengthening  the  bonds  of 

74 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

peace,  personifying  with  all  his  power  that  vague  but 
persuasive  thing — the  white  man's  administration. 

He  invited  us  to  accompany  him  and  we  should  have 
dearly  loved  to  do  so,  but  there  were  the  gorillas  to  get 
and  Mr.  Akeley's  time  was  limited.  So  on  we  went 
with  the  boat  next  morning  and  stopped  that  night  at 
Katana,  a  mission  of  the  White  Fathers,  high  on  a 
hill  on  the  western  shore.  Here  we  got  the  story  of  the 
gorilla  invasion  which  had  occurred  just  two  weeks 
before. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  memory  of  the  mission  the 
gorillas  had  come  down  from  the  forests  on  the  moun- 
tains and  had  entered  the  plantations  of  the  natives, 
where  the  natives  found  them  in  the  morning  busily 
feeding. 

Now,  that  tribe  has  a  superstition  against  killing  a 
"man-ape,"  believing  that  the  man  who  does  so  will 
have  childless  daughters  and  that  his  son's  wife  will 
lose  her  son,  so  the  men  were  chary  about  attacking  the 
invaders.  They  tried  first  to  drive  them  off  with  drums 
and  shouts,  and  then,  at  the  chief's  orders,  went  in  and 
tried  to  scare  them  off  with  sticks. 

The  female  did  make  off,  apparently,  at  their  ap- 
proach, but  the  male  turned  on  them,  tore  one  man  to 
pieces,  and  wounded  four  others.  The  rest  of  the  men 
rushed  in  with  their  spears,  piercing  the  gorilla  through 
and  through.  The  skin  was  so  badly  torn  that  it  had 
not  been  preserved;  Mr.  Akeley  was  sorry  not  to  get 
the  skull. 

He  had  some  thought  of  stopping  here  and  starting 
off  towards  those  mountains  for  his  gorillas,  but  the 

75 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

rumors  about  them  were  too  conflicting  and  the  dis- 
tances too  vague.  It  seemed  wiser  to  keep  on  to  the 
original  objective,  where  the  natives  knew  the  gorilla 
range  and  had  no  superstition  about  hunting  them. 

We  heard  another  story  about  gorillas  from  Monsieur 
Dargent,  a  Belgian  administrator  on  the  little  boat  with 
us,  going  out  to  his  post  at  Sake  at  the  northwest  end 
of  the  lake.  He  said  that  fourteen  days'  journey  in  the 
forest  back  of  Sake  there  were  gorillas  which  had  so 
terrorized  the  natives  that  several  villages  had  been 
abandoned.  He  had  not  seen  the  gorillas  himself,  but 
he  had  heard  many  stories  from  the  natives. 

That  sounded  like  the  good  old  demon  gorilla  of  Du 
Chaillu's  reports  which  attacks  man  on  sight  and  car- 
ries off  woman.  But  Mr.  Akeley  was  unshaken  in  his 
conviction  of  the  animal's  natural  inoffensiveness  to- 
wards man.  I  could  see  that  a  gorilla  was  going  to  have 
to  treat  him  rough  to  make  any  impression ! 

And,  of  course,  these  were  only  native  rumors,  with- 
out any  of  the  circumstances  being  given.  It  was  per- 
fectly possible  that  a  food  shortage  had  led  the  gorillas 
to  prey  upon  the  village  shambas,  and  where  men  and 
gorillas  were  brought  into  collision  over  food  there  was 
no  question  but  that  the  gorilla  was  a  terrible  antag- 
onist. The  great  length  of  his  huge  arms  gave  him  a 
Iremendous  reach  and  he  was  credited  with  being  able 
to  scoop  out  a  man  like  a  soft-shell  crab. 

The  question  was,  did  he  do  this  only  in  self-defense, 
or  did  he  do  it  wantonly,  and  did  he  hunt  man  and  at- 
tack him  on  sight?  These  were  the  questions  on  which 
we  hoped  for  experience  to  throw  a  deciding  light.  A 

76 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

little  time  more  now  and  we  should  put  our  luck  to 
the  test. 

It  was  at  Kantana  that  I  began  having  the  fever. 
Ever  since  entering  the  Congo  it  had  been  a  question 
whether  to  take  quinine  regularly  every  day  or  not. 
Almost  all  Europeans  in  the  interior  took  five  grains 
a  day  on  the  theory  that  if  you  had  enough  quinine  in 
your  blood  a  stray  bite  wouldn't  infect  you,  but  there 
were  others  who  did  not  take  any  at  all  until  they  felt 
ill.  I  rather  liked  that  latter  theory.  I  felt  so  supremely 
well  that  it  seemed  useless  to  take  anything  until  I  felt 
the  need  of  it.  I  did  give  two  and  a  half  grains  a  day 
to  Alice  to  make  her  doubly  sure  and  Mr.  Bradley  and 
the  two  girls  took  their  five  grains  each  day,  but  I 
did  not. 

All  I  know  is  that  I  didn't  take  quinine  and  I  did 
have  the  fever.  And  the  same  thing  later  happened  to 
Mr.  Akeley,  who  didn't  take  quinine  regularly,  while 
the  others  who  did  had  none.  That  may  not  mean  any- 
thing, but  that  is  the  way  it  happened. 

I  must  have  been  bitten  at  Usumbura  or  on  our  march 
up  from  Tanganyika,  for  Kivu  is  delightfully  healthy 
and  free  from  all  mosquitoes  and  flies.  Now  a  small 
boat  is  no  place  on  which  to  have  the  fever.  We  three 
Bradleys  had  our  cots  on  the  deck  of  the  launch  that 
night,  while  the  others  camped  at  the  mission,  and  next 
day  I  huddled  in  my  steamer  chair,  gazing  heavily  at 
the  fairylike  shores  of  Kivu,  and  thinking  that  if  no  one 
knew  the  difference  between  sunburn  and  a  temperature 
of  a  hundred  and  four — it  felt  a  hundred  and  forty! — I 
wouldn't  enlighten  them  until  I  had  to.  The  fever  was 

77 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

accompanied  by  a  headache  which  grew  positively  thun- 
derous, and  when  the  real  thunder  broke  over  us — it 
came  early  that  afternoon  and  caught  us  out  on  the  lake 
— it  seemed  a  mild  echo  of  what  was  going  on  within. 

The  storm  that  day  was  a  tremendous  gust  of  wind 
and  rain,  and  the  ship's  engine  broke,  so  we  rolled  about 
helplessly  until  it  consented  to  go  on  again.  We  were 
a  drenched-to-the-skin  lot,  in  spite  of  raincoats,  when 
we  finally  landed  at  Kissenyi,  at  the  northeast  end  of 
the  lake. 

There,  against  the  horizon,  were  the  far,  cloud- 
wrapped  peaks  of  our  objective — Mikeno,  Karisimbi, 
Visoke.  We  were  to  camp  at  Kissenyi  until  we  could 
collect  porters,  provisions,  and  information  to  go  on. 
Kissenyi  has  the  air  of  being  quite  a  place.  It  was  built 
by  the  Germans,  for  we  were  now  in  the  kingdom  of 
Ruanda,  in  what  was  formerly  the  very  western  frontier 
of  German  East  Africa.  The  boundary  between  Ger- 
man East  and  the  Belgian  Congo  used  to  run  southwest 
to  the  lake,  and  a  little  north  of  Kissenyi ;  the  Belgians 
maintained  a  post  at  Goma.  Now  the  Belgian  occupa- 
tional post  is  Kissenyi.  Along  the  shore  runs  an  ave- 
nue, straight  as  a  marine  parade,  shaded  with  eucalyptus 
and  edged  tidily  with  lava  rock  and  shrubs.  To  the 
right  were  the  clustering  roofs  of  the  native  village  and 
the  soldiers'  compound.  There  were  two  white  families 
at  Kissenyi,  the  chef  de  poste  and  his  wife  and  the  doc- 
tor and  his  wife.  The  doctor  was  a  bacteriologist  in 
charge  of  a  laboratory  investigating  the  rinderpest  and 
other  diseases.  We  had  noticed  their  house  coming  in — 
a  pretty  one  of  brick  in  a  lovely  rose  garden. 

78 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

We  pitched  our  tents  in  the  driest  place  possible,  with 
the  lake  at  our  feet  and  the  volcanic  peaks  all  about  the 
horizon.  Our  nearest  neighbor,  Chaninagongo,  had  a 
heavy  cloud  of  steam  overhanging  its  crater,  colored 
with  ruddy  lights;  but  the  crimson  glow  which  burned 
in  the  sky  at  night  came  from  Nyamlagira,  many  miles 
away. 

All  I  saw  of  Kissenyi  for  some  days  I  saw  the  first 
night,  for  I  went  to  bed  and  had  it  out  with  the  fever — 
and  Monsieur  Van  Saceghem,  the  bacteriologist,  came 
twice  a  day,  and  he  and  his  charming  wife  did  everything 
in  the  world  for  us,  sending  us  eggs  and  butter  and  milk 
each  day,  and  filling  my  tent  with  roses. 

It  was  great  good  fortune  to  have  him  there,  and  it 
was  a  distinct  relief  when  his  blood  tests  told  me  I  had 
only  the  regular  African  fever,  from  an  infected  mos- 
quito, and  not  the  kimpootoo  or  spirillum  fever,  which 
comes  from  a  tick  bite,  and  is  a  recurrent  blaze,  often 
deadly,  with  danger  of  paralysis.  The  kimpootoo  is 
found  chiefly  on  the  caravan  routes,  where  the  ticks  are 
brought  in  on  the  carriers'  feet,  and  for  that  reason  old 
camping  grounds  are  not  desirable. 

But  even  malaria  isn't  so  cheery  while  it  lasts,  and  I 
felt  that  it  was  no  moment  for  the  news  which  reached 
us  of  a  Belgian  couple  who  had  gone  through  the  Congo 
just  ahead  of  us,  Dr.  Deriddar  and  his  wife.  They  had 
gone  out  to  hunt  on  the  Ruindi  plains,  where  we  were 
going  after  we  had  finished  with  the  gorillas,  and  there 
Monsieur  Deriddar  had  died  of  the  fever  and  his  wife 
was  lying  desperately  ill,  mauled  by  a  lion. 

I  made  up  my  mind  that  if  I  lived  through  the  fever 

79 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

I  would  avoid  lions — at  least  avoid  going  into  grass 
after  them,  as  Madame  Deriddar  had  done.  She  had 
been  finishing  the  hunt  alone,  after  her  husband  had 
gone  back  to  the  camp,  feeling  the  beginning  of  fever ; 
she  had  come  on  several  lions  in  a  gully,  had  wounded 
three  or  four,  who  apparently  made  off,  and  in  follow- 
ing them  up  she  had  been  surprised  by  a  wounded  one, 
who  sprang  on  her  out  of  the  grass.  He  had  mauled 
her  and  then  drawn  back,  and  she  had  had  the  pluck  to 
get  out  her  revolver  and  finish  him. 

I  added  to  my  good  intentions  the  firm  resolve  to 
carry  a  revolver  in  lion  country — and  oh,  how  poig- 
nantly I  remembered  that  resolve  one  night  upon  the 
plains !  But  lion  country  or  fever  country  or  any  coun- 
try, I  was  going  to  take  my  five  grains  of  quinine  a  day. 
I  was  unutterably  grateful  that  I  had  given  it  to  Alice, 
who  was  blooming  like  a  rose,  playing  on  the  sand  on 
the  beach — the  only  beach  on  Kivu — and  keeping  Miss 
Hall  extremely  busy  with  a  violent  little  pastime  called 
spearing  gorillas,  which  she  played  with  native  spears. 

We  were  very  social,  those  days  of  waiting  at  Kis- 
senyi.  While  our  friends  at  home  were  doubtless  pic- 
turing us  as  sweltering  in  some  lonely,  pestilential 
jungle,  we  were  enjoying  a  climate  of  June's  loveliest, 
untroubled  by  flies  or  mosquitoes,  and  going  to  tea  at 
the  chef  de  poste's  and  to  dinner  at  the  doctor's  in  true 
European  style! 

Our  own  table  was  greatly  enriched  at  Kissenyi  by 
vegetables  and  fruit  from  the  Mission  of  the  White 
Fathers  at  Nyunde,  three  hours'  journey  back  in  the 
mountains.  For  ten  francs  our  boys  brought  back  huge 

80 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

baskets  full  of  potatoes,  leeks,  onions,  cabbage,  celery, 
and  lettuce,  and  we  had  oranges,  strawberries,  citrons, 
and  limes.  Pineapples  we  had  not  seen  since  Lake  Tan- 
ganyika. Papaya — a  sweet,  native  tree  fruit,  in  sub- 
stance like  a  melon — and  bananas  we  were  usually  able 
to  obtain  from  the  natives,  and  there  were  always  chick- 
ens and  eggs  to  be  had  and  often  milk — although  we 
preferred  our  own  tinned  Ideal  milk. 

We  had  another  neighbor  who  had  been  more  than 
kind  during  my  illness,  a  young  Englishwoman,  Mrs. 
T.  Alexander  Barns,  the  wife  of  an  English  hunter 
and  collector.  She  was  waiting  at  Kissenyi  for  her  hus- 
band to  come  down  from  the  mountains,  where  he  had 
gone  for  gorillas  for  a  group  for  the  British  Museum. 

Odd  that  two  men,  one  for  an  American  institution, 
one  for  an  English,  should  have  happened  on  the  same 
spot  in  central  Africa,  for  the  same  purpose  at  the  same 
time!  Mrs.  Barns  and  I  hoped,  humorously,  but  fer- 
vently, that  there  would  be  enough  gorillas  to  go  round ! 

And  the  accounts  which  came  down  from  the  moun- 
tain of  the  cold  and  nettles,  and  the  crawling  on  hands 
and  knees  made  us  realize  that  this  was  not  exactly 
child's  play  on  which  we  were  engaged.  I  don't  wonder 
that  every  one  in  the  country  thought  the  determination 
of  women  to  see  wild  gorillas  was  distinct  lunacy.  But 
crawl  or  climb,  Martha  Miller  and  I  were  going  on  with 
it.  We  had  not  come  the  long  trail  to  be  turned  back 
now,  and  if  there  was  no  chance  on  the  mountains,  Her- 
bert promised  he  would  take  the  fourteen-day  trek  to 
Walikali  to  the  gorillas  Monsieur  Dargent  had  told 
us  about. 

81 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

But  our  greatest  sociability  in  camp  came  from  our 
native  visitors.  Rwakadiga,  the  chief  of  Kissenyi,  was  an 
inveterate  caller.  Every  morning,  just  the  busiest  mo- 
ment of  it,  I  would  see  the  long  procession  of  spears 
headed  for  the  tents,  Rwakadiga  and  his  attendants  in 
the  lead.  Then  I  would  snatch  at  my  phrase  book  of 
Swahili,  the  almost  universal  language  of  the  Arab 
traders  from  Zanzibar,  and  scan  it  hurriedly  in  hope  of 
injecting  something  in  the  nature  of  conversation  into 
the  ensuing  call. 

My  book  was  a  hopeless  affair.  It  abounded  in  such 
sterile  offerings  as  "The  foreigner  has  not  received  his 
canoes.  .  .  .  The  wizard  has  cheated  the  ten  simpletons 
of  their  spoons.  .  .  .  My  blister  is  not  your  boil."  But 
I  had  added  more  useful  gleanings  to  it,  so  that  I  was 
able  to  conduct  a  strictly  centralized  series  of  remarks 
concerning  my  desire  to  buy  the  skins  of  animals  and 
small,  clean,  and  beautiful  baskets. 

The  chief  would  head  for  the  first  tent,  shared  by 
Alice  and  me,  and  we  would  come  out  and  shake  hands 
ceremoniously  with  him. 

"Jambo,  Mamma"  (Greeting,  mother),  was  his 
speech. 

"Jambo,  mfalme"  (Greeting,  chief),  was  mine. 

I  was  Mamma  to  all  the  natives,  except  the  tent  boys, 
who  said  miss  indiscriminately.  Father  is  different  in 
the  different  languages,  but  Mamma  is  the  same,  Africa 
over. 

Alice  had  always  to  trot  out  and  shake  hands  with 
the  chief,  then  she  would  trot  back  to  her  dolls  or  draw- 
ing. She  was  neither  afraid  of  the  natives  nor  particu- 

82 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

larly  interested  in  them.  She  did  not  see  the  strange- 
ness which  we  did,  or  think  them  at  all  unusual.  They 
were  simply  part  of  the  amazing  world  which  she  was 
daily  discovering  and  a  natural  part  of  it  to  her. 

They  were  not  at  all  frightening  or  repellent,  but  she 
did  get  tired  of  the  way  they  hung  about  her  tent,  some- 
times trying  to  touch  her  yellow  curls,  Some  of  them 
thought  the  curls  were  ornaments  and  wanted  to  see  if 
they  would  come  off;  others  simply  wanted  to  feel  that 
strange,  fair  hair.  But  they  were  never  intrusive  or 
impertinent,  and  brought  her  gifts  of  baskets  or  eggs. 
None  of  them  had  seen  a  white  child  before. 

One  day  I  saw  a  boy  drop  on  his  knees.  He  muttered 
over  and  over  a  lot  of  unintelligible  things  in  which  I 
caught  the  words  Jesu  Christ.  I  called  the  invaluable 
Mablanga. 

"What  this  boy  say?" 

Mablanga  took  off  his  cap,  his  invariable  respectful 
prelude  to  speech,  and  smiled  in  an  abashed  yet  amused 
way.  Then,  as  usual,  when  stuck  for  an  explanation, 
he  resorted  to  negatives. 

"No  understand,  miss." 

"I  think  he  says  'Jesu  Christ.'  " 

"Yes,  miss.  One  time  he  go  mission.  He  see  little 
thing — made  like  baby.  He  say  that  Jesu  Christ." 

The  boy  had  seen  the  colored  image  at  a  distant 
mission  and  to  him  Alice  was  the  living  image.  So  pres- 
ently he  went  away  and  came  back  with  a  little  basket 
for  a  present.  We  thought  it  very  touching  and 
thanked  him  fervently.  But  he  was  not  satisfied.  He 
made  several  emphatic  remarks. 

83 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

"What  he  say,  Mablanga?" 

"He  say  now  time  Jesu  Christ  make  present,"  re- 
sponded Mablanga. 

So  Jesu  Christ  gave  him  fourteen  cents  and  he  went 
away  reconciled. 

Rwakadiga  had  some  distinctly  advanced  ideas.  He 
wanted  a  white  wife;  he  had  heard  there  were  many  in 
the  lands  far  away  and  he  wanted  the  white  people  to 
write  and  get  him  one.  He  had  sixty  black  ones,  but  he 
was  willing  to  part  with  them — or  most  of  them — for  he 
understood  the  Europeans — all  whites  are  Europeans — 
were  conservative,  and  his  men  would  build  her  a  house 
in  true  European  fashion. 

He  had  suggested  this  both  to  Mrs.  Barns  and  Ma- 
dame Van  Saceghem,  and  now  he  endeavored  to  con- 
vey it  to  me,  but  my  phrase  book  was  unequal  to  any- 
thing intime.  I  had  heard  what  he  wanted  and  I  under- 
stood his  words  about  writing  a  letter,  but  my  boy  was 
too  scandalized  to  translate  his  request  any  further. 

There  was  no  hint  of  race  problem  in  Africa — not  so 
far  as  white  women  were  concerned.  Not  one  of  us  ever 
had  the  feeling  of  personal  timidity. 

We  made  another  acquaintance  in  Kissenyi  which 
we  would  have  been  glad  to  keep  at  a  greater  distance — 
the  jigger  or  burrowing  flea.  This  is  not  the  jigger  of 
the  American  woods.  It  is  a  microscopic  insect,  like  a 
grain  of  black  pepper,  that  without  any  social  formali- 
ties of  introduction  dives  into  your  foot,  or  more  rarely 
your  hand,  preferably  about  the  nail,  and  digs  himself 
in  for  the  winter.  He — or  I  should  say,  she — lays  a 
long  chain  of  eggs.  There  was  no  pain  attached  to  the 

84 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

entry,  but  at  the  egg  stage  the  dugout  has  become  a 
purple,  painful  blister,  and  this  is  the  cue  for  an  imme- 
diate extraction.  There  was  an  Englishman  once  who 
wished  to  take  his  jigger  back  to  his  physician  intact 
in  his  toe  for  scientific  inspection  of  the  phenomenon; 
that  Englishman  died.  This  burrowing  flea  is  not  native 
African  but  was  landed  on  the  West  Coast  in  the  dirt 
ballast  of  an  old  Portuguese  trading  ship,  and  carried 
across  the  continent  on  the  bare  feet  of  the  carriers. 

Our  first  jigger  was  an  event.  Repetition  staled  the 
interest  and  evoked  aversion.  The  mud-thatched  mag- 
azine at  Kissenyi  where  our  goods  were  stored  was 
loaded  with  the  pests  and  after  Mr.  Akeley  had  un- 
knowingly entered  the  warehouse  and  then  returned  to 
camp  we  had  an  invasion  of  them.  Old  market  squares 
and  native  villages  are  their  usual  abiding  places. 

There  were  no  crocodiles  in  Kivu,  and  one  could  enter 
the  waters  without  fear.  At  Kissenyi  there  was  the  only 
strip  of  beach  on  the  entire  lake — the  name  Kissenyi 
itself  means  "sand" — and  after  four-thirty,  when  we 
could  take  off  our  helmets,  Martha  and  Alice  and  Pris- 
cilla  and  I  had  some  delightful  swims. 

Early  explorers  had  stated  there  were  no  hippos  in 
Kivu,  but  at  Bukavu  Monsieur  Massart  told  me  that  he 
had  seen  one  between  Bukavu  and  Katana,  and  that  he 
was  going  out  some  day  to  kill  it — and  as  my  French 
was  unequal  to  the  work  of  persuasion  I  expect  the  last 
rare  hippo  has  ere  now  disappeared. 

Of  the  climate  of  Kivu,  every  Belgian  said,  "It  is 
Europe."  The  temperature  is  exceptionally  equable, 
one  day  there  rarely  varying  three  degrees  from  another 

85 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  year  around.  The  morning  is  spring,  the  noon 
July,  and  the  afternoon  spring  again — the  night  Octo- 
ber. Every  night  in  Africa  we  slept  under  blankets, 
except  for  a  few  hot  ones  on  the  Baron  Dhanis  on  Lake 
Tanganyika,  in  staterooms  close  against  the  high  bank 
to  which  the  boat  was  tied.  The  only  variation  in  the 
Kivu  climate  is  the  alternation  of  wet  and  dry. 

The  rains,  which  had  begun  the  first  day  upon  the 
Congo,  September  20,  were  in  full  downpour  now.  The 
mornings  were  sunny  and  cloudless,  but  between  noon 
and  two  o'clock  a  black  thunderstorm  would  come  scud- 
ding across  the  sky  and  the  heavens  would  open  with 
peals  and  crashings-and  all  the  water  in  the  world,  ap- 
parently, would  come  down.  Sometimes  the  rain  would 
last  an  hour  or  two;  sometimes  twenty  minutes.  We 
found  the  dampness  pervasive,  and  tried  to  keep  clothes 
well  aired  in  the  sunshine.  When  I  was  up  after  the 
fever  I  spread  out  the  contents  of  my  green  bag,  which 
had  been  standing  on  my  tent  floor  untouched  for  over  a 
week,  and  found  that  the  articles  at  the  bottom  of  it 
were  green  with  mold — baskets  and  coin  purses  and  a 
pair  of  my  slippers.  But  that  was  something  that  a 
resident  with  a  fire  or  a  dry  floor  could  avoid.  These 
rains,  called  the  light  rains,  lasted  till  the  middle  of 
December,  then,  after  a  dry  month,  were  two  months  of 
heavier  rain,  and  this  was  the  usual  yearly  program. 

For  mildness  and  healthfulness  of  climate,  for  fer- 
tility of  soil  and  for  enchanting  beauty,  Kivu  is  unex- 
celled among  the  Belgian  outposts.  It  would  be  an 
ideal  place  for  a  colony  of  artistic  and  literary  folk — for 
any  self-sufficient  group  who  wanted  peace  and  beauty 

86 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

and  leisure  and  the  comforts  of  life  without  spending  a 
fortune  for  them.  The  fortune  would  be  spent  on  the 
way  in.  After  that,  life  at  the  present  cost  of  boys  and 
food  could  be  maintained  on  unreasonably  little. 

When  we  were  in  Kissenyi  there  were  only  two  white 
families  there — Monsieur  and  Madame  Wera  and  Doc- 
tor and  Madame  Van  Saceghem.  It  is  those  lonely 
couples,  those  exiles  on  the  far  outposts,  that  pay  the 
price  of  colonization.  Every  home  that  I  went  into  was 
a  little  bit  of  Belgium.  Against  the  grass  wall  were 
innumerable  photographs  of  the  family — all  the  rela- 
tives, big  and  little,  and  the  pet  dogs  and  kittens.  And 
almost  always  there  would  be  a  series  of  pictures  of 
some  little  girl  or  boy — the  child  who  was  left  at  home. 
That  was  the  tragedy  of  the  Congo  and  of  all  far  colo- 
nies. It  had  been  a  joy.  at  Changugu  to  see  the  little 
seven-year-old  Jean-Jean  there  with  his  parents.  At 
Bukavu  the  administrator  and  his  wife,  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Mignolet,  had  two  little  babies,  a  tiny  one  in 
arms  and  an  older  brother  in  pink  rompers.  ...  A 
little  later,  as  we  left  the  Congo,  we  heard  that  Madame 
Mignolet  had  died  very  suddenly  and  the  stricken  hus- 
band was  trying  to  get  leave  to  take  his  babies  home  to 
Belgium.  The  Dargents,  who  had  been  on  the  Kivu 
launch  with  us,  had  been  separated  for  many  years  ex- 
cept for  Monsieur  Dargent's  visits  to  Belgium,  for 
Madame  had  remained  on  the  Continent  with  their  little 
girl ;  now  she  was  leaving  the  thirteen-year-old  and  com- 
ing out  with  her  husband.  "When  I  think  of  my  little 
girl  I  am  always  in  sad  humor,"  she  told  me.  Letters 
were  three  months  reaching  Kivu. 

87 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

The  Van  Saceghems  had  a  little  lad  of  about  ten, 
home  in  Belgium.  Eighteen  months  more  and  they 
would  see  him.  It  was  the  women  who  paid  coloniza- 
tion's highest  price.  The  life  had  attracted  the  men,  and 
all  the  officials  that  I  met  were  a  splendid  class  of  men, 
most  of  them  former  officers  in  the  war,  responsible,  dis- 
cerning, keenly  interested  in  their  work.  The  women 
were  the  loyal  wives  who  followed  and  made  a  home  in 
the  wilderness.  I  never  met  one  for  whom  the  wilder- 
ness itself  seemed  to  have  the  slightest  attraction;  I 
expect  they  thought  we  Americans  were  mad  to  come 
so  far  and  go  through  with  so  much  for  the  sake  of 
ranging  the  jungles.  When  the  Belgian  women  went 
from  post  to  post  they  were  carried  along  the  beaten 
ways  in  a  chair  by  four  natives,  and  they  went  in  white 
frocks  and  white  shod.  They  were  very  domestic;  and 
their  housekeeping  was  infinitely  more  painstaking  even 
than  on  the  prudent  Continent,  for  here  the  precious 
supplies  were  kept  under  lock  and  key  and  unlocked  for 
each  meal. 

Madame  Van  Saceghem  got  more  out  of  the  African 
life  than  the  others  She  had  a  garden  radiant  with 
roses  brought  out  from  Belgium,  which  bloomed  as  roses 
bloom  in  Southern  California;  and  she  had  innumerable 
pets.  We  could  hardly  keep  Alice  away  from  this  treas- 
ure house  of  little  rabbits  and  chickens  and  ducklings 
and  goats.  Madame  had  a  pet  antelope,  Bichette,  which 
she  fed  out  of  a  bottle  and  often  she  came  to  call  with 
the  antelope  bounding  ahead  of  her,  and  a  golden- 
crested  crane  flying  overhead.  These  Kavirondo  cranes 
were  birds  of  beautiful  plumage,  with  black,  v^lvetlike 

88 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

heads  from  which  springs  the  golden  crest.  I  remember 
one  night  when  the  great  crane  flapped  about  a  tree  in 
camp  while  she  stood  chatting,  and  the  little  dyker  an- 
telope, enlivened  by  the  evening  breeze,  dashed  about  in 
playful  circles,  skimming  bushes  and  feigning  flight. 
One  could  imagine  how  a  band  of  the  little  wild  things 
would  romp.  .  .  . 

Dr.  Van  Saceghem's  work  was  extraordinarily  varied; 
his  real  purpose  was  to  investigate  the  animal  dis- 
eases, but  of  course  the  natives  wore  a  path  to  his 
door.  While  we  were  there  the  favorite  wife  of  the 
chief  across  the  lake  brought  her  sick  child  to  be  cured. 
The  wife  was  a  pretty  young  thing  wrapped  in  scarlet 
cloth  and  so  heavily  weighted  with  beads  and  anklets 
that  she  would  have  sunk  like  a  stone  in  the  lake;  she 
never  walked  more  than  two  steps  but  rode  around  in 
triumph  in  her  litter.  .  .  .  She  made  a  social  call  on  us 
of  smiles  and  silences,  for  neither  of  us  could  make  her- 
self understood.  Her  ornaments  were  all  modern 
trader's  stuff ;  the  tiny  white  seed  pearl  beads  that  were 
the  vogue  in  Ruanda  and  the  small  gold  ones.  ...  It 
really  is  little  use  to  bring  beads  for  trading  into  the 
interior,  because  each  place  has  its  own  style  and  fash- 
ion and  nothing  else  is  of  interest.  These  natives  all 
understood  the  use  of  francs  perfectly;  salt  and  white 
American  cloth  were  the  only  commodities  for  which 
they  wanted  to  barter.  We  bought  a  little  cloth  for  our 
own  use  at  Kissenyi  of  an  Arab  trader  and  paid  thirty 
francs  for  a  piece  of  three  yards.  We  had  imagined 
that  we  should  find  a  great  deal  of  ivory  in  the  Congo. 
It  was  in  fact  remarkably  scarce.  We  saw  very  few 

89 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

natives  who  wore  ivory  ornaments;  this  young  queen, 
for  instance,  had  none.  The  Arab  traders,  that  came 
in  after  Stanley  had  made  his  way  down  the  Congo,  had 
combed  the  country  and  for  years  poachers  and  traders 
had  drained  the  ancient  supplies.  On  the  Lualaba  we 
saw  girls  wearing  bracelets  of  a  grain  that  appeared  so 
like  ivory  as  almost  to  deceive  an  expert;  a  lighted 
match  to  the  scrapings  proved  that  they  were  celluloid, 
part  of  some  trader's  supplies.  At  Katana  many  of  the 
children  had  ivory  bracelets.  They  came  from  the  moun- 
tains, where  there  were  elephants,  and  where  the  natives 
undoubtedly  failed  to  observe  the  Belgian  order  to  bring 
in  the  ivory  of  any  dead  elephant,  I  saw  only  two  chiefs 
wearing  the  old  royal  bracelets — huge  ivory  affairs 
rising  to  a  point.  The  first  time  was  at  Usumbura  mar- 
ket, and  I  was  then  too  politely  reserved  in  my  dealings 
with  natives  to  do  more  than  take  a  photograph  of  him ; 
the  other  time  was  on  the  way  from  Tanganyika,  when 
we  camped  by  the  village  of  Kisaci,  a  Watussi  overlord. 
Ruanda  is  inhabited  by  two  tribes — the  Wahuti  and 
the  Watussi.  The  Wahuti  are  the  original  inhabitants 
and  they  were  conquered  by  the  Watussi,  a  tribe  that 
came  down  from  the  north  at  some  dim  date,  probably 
during  the  same  migrations  of  races  that  brought  the 
Masai  down  into  Central  Africa.  They  are  ascribed  to 
Abyssinia,  and  they  have  a  distinctly  foreign  air,  tall, 
lean  giants  of  men,  often  seven  feet  tall  and  so  thin  they 
appear  emaciated,  with  oval  faces  and  finely  finished 
features.  They  are  the  overlords  to  whom  the  lands  be- 
long; the  Wahuti  do  all  the  work.  The  Watussi  are 
not  Mohammedans — they  have  an  interesting  religion 

90 


Photograph  by  Pere  Provoost 

WATUSSI   FAMILY   BRINGING   MILK   AND   BUTTER 


[page  90] 


L 


Photograph  oy  Pere  Provoost 

WATUSSI  GIRLS  MAKIXG   BUTTER  BY  SHAKING  CREAM  ix  A  GOURD 

[page  90] 


WHITE   FATHER'S   MISSION   AT   N- 


[page  93] 


CATHEDRAL  IN  ERECTION  AT  NYUNDE 


[page  93] 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

in  which  some  analogies  to  the  mediator  of  Christianity 
have  been  traced  by  one  of  the  White  Fathers ;  but  their 
women  maintain  a  Mohammedan-like  seclusion.  No  one 
sees  a  Watussi  woman.  Musinga  is  the  King  over  all 
Ruanda;  he  maintains  a  court  at  Nyanza  that  is  prob- 
ably the  last  barbaric  court  of  any  importance. 

An  ancient  superstition  holds  him  a  prisoner  at  court, 
for  the  medicine  men  have  predicted  that  if  the  king 
crosses  a  certain  mountain  he  will  die  and  if  he  passes 
a  certain  river  he  will  lose  his  sight.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
neither  the  king  nor  the  medicine  men  have  any  faith 
in  this,  for  the  king  did  visit  Goma,  a  few  miles  from 
Kissenyi,  just  a  little  time  before  we  came,  though  he 
maintained  a  strict  incognito.  The  superstition  is  a 
convenient  way  to  keep  the  king  within  bounds,  for  if 
he  went  traveling  and  visiting  his  various  chiefs  he  could 
take  whatever  his  fancy  pleased;  as  it  is,  the  chiefs  go 
to  him,  bringing  their  own  selection  of  gifts.  Musinga 
is  fabulously  wealthy;  every  cow  and  goat  and  chicken 
in  his  kingdom  is  the  king's ;  and  his  court  has  a  lavish 
splendor.  He  heard  of  automobiles  and  sent  for  two 
upholstered  in  red  velvet  that  were  brought  to  him  un- 
told miles  over  the  mountains  on  the  heads  of  carriers 
and  now  sit  in  state  at  his  palace  door. 

Kisaci,  he  of  the  bracelet,  was  one  of  the  Watussi,  a 
lean  old  potentate  with  a  scarlet  blanket,  with  a  royal 
assurance  and  an  untiring  interest  in  our  camp.  He 
evidently  felt  very  civilized  and  liked  to  air  a  box  of 
safety  matches  to  light  his  pipe.  As  he  smoked  he  used 
to  beckon  to  his  aide  de  camp  or  prime  minister  or  who- 
ever it  was,  and  when  the  man  came,  Kisaci  leaned  his 

91 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

elbow  on  his  shoulder  and  draped  himself  against  this 
support  for  the  next  two  hours. 

I  noticed  at  once  that  he  wore  a  perfectly  stunning 
ivory  armlet  of  the  royal  shape,  and  asked  to  buy  it 
but  he  firmly  declined  to  sell.  It  had  belonged  to  untold 
grandfathers  and  was  worth  two  wives,  but  he  would 
not  sell  it,  no,  not  for  the  price  of  two  wives.  "But  for 
the  toto"  said  I  and  produced  Alice,  the  Sultana.  She 
was  the  first  white  child  of  course  that  he  had  seen, 
and  he  succumbed.  He  consented  to  give  his  bracelet 
to  the  little  one — receiving,  however,  the  francs  I  had 
offered — and  he  made  quite  a  speech  through  an  inter- 
preter, telling  her  always  to  remember  that  the  great 
chief  Kisaci  of  the  Watussi  had  given  his  royal  bracelet 
to  the  little  white  child. 

At  Kissenyi  we  saw  a  few  ivory  bracelets  and  were 
able  to  obtain  most  of  them  through  the  energy  of 
Madame  Van  Saceghem,  and  her  own  generosity  pre- 
sented us  with  others.  Here,  too,  we  received  some 
of  the  beautiful  baskets  made  by  the  wives  of  the  Wa- 
tussi chiefs  which  had  been  given  to  the  administrators 
as  the  chief's  gifts.  Madame  Keyser  at  Changugu, 
had  given  us  her  own.  They  were  round  and  high  with 
a  peaked  top,  woven  with  intricate  fineness,  with 
bizarre  jagged  black  lines  of  patterns. 

While  waiting  at  Kissenyi  for  the  porters  to  come  in 
and  take  us  up  the  gorilla  mountains,  and  for  provisions 
of  dried  beans  to  sustain  the  porters  upon  the  expedi- 
tion, Herbert  and  Martha  and  I  made  a  day's  excur- 
sion into  the  mountains  east  of  Kissenyi  to  the  mission 
of  Nyunde,  from  which  we  were  drawing  our  generous 

92 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

supply  of  vegetables  and  fruit.  The  way  wound  along 
rich  slopes  checkered  with  fertile  fields  where  the  women 
were  working — it  is  the  women  and  sometimes  the  chil- 
dren who  do  the  field  work  among  natives. 

Almost  every  woman  had  a  baby  tied  in  the  goat  skin 
on  her  back,  and  as  the  women  would  hoe  away  the  little 
head  would  bump  and  bump  against  the  maternal  back 
or  else  drop  in  sleep  at  an  angle  harrowing  to  our  sym- 
pathies. Only  twice  during  those  months  in  Africa  did 
I  see  a  child  laid  in  the  bushes  while  the  mother  worked. 
I  suppose  the  danger  from  wild  beasts,  leopards  espe- 
cially, occasioned  the  custom.  The  father  holds  the 
mother  responsible,  so  she  carts  even  a  good-sized 
youngster  with  her.  She  has  a  stoic  endurance,  but  she 
has  also  a  stoic  indifference.  I  have  seen  women  gos- 
siping and  laughing  while  a  baby  was  shrieking  itself 
hoarse.  The  infant  mortality  is  tremendously  high;  a 
great  deal  of  it  must  be  due  to  the  native  fashion  of 
stuffing  a  child.  When  the  baby  is  a  few  months  old  the 
mother  begins  to  feed  it  a  preparation  of  coarse  meal; 
she  forces  it  down  in  much  the  fashion  that  the  Strass- 
burg  goose  is  fed;  filling  her  hand  with  the  stuff  she 
pushes  it  into  the  baby's  mouth  and  holds  the  little  nose 
until  the  gagging  child  swallows.  Often  the  baby  has 
spasms  of  coughing  ending  literally  in  convulsions; 
when  it  is  exhausted,  she  begins  again.  Custom  is  a 
wonderful  thing.  A  native  mother  would  regard  her- 
self as  a  moral  derelict  if  she  shirked  this  maternal  duty. 
The  Mission  at  Nyunde  has  a  superb  site,  crowning 
a  mountain  top ;  the  outlook  over  the  amazingly  fertile 
valleys  and  mountains  reminded  one  of  scenes  in  the 

93 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

Alps.  For  twenty  years  the  Mission  has  been  there; 
the  Father  Superior  had  been  there  for  thirteen  years. 
Before  the  war,  he  told  me,  there  were  five  thousand 
black  Christians  in  the  vicinity,  now  famine  has  reduced 
the  number  one-half.  I  do  not  know  exactly  what  he 
meant  by  a  black  Christian.  The  Catholic  Encyclo- 
paedia for  1911  reported  that  there  were  4823  blacks  in 
the  Congo  baptized  by  the  White  Fathers  and  18,797 
catechumens.  The  fathers  grew  the  vegetables  and  fruits 
of  Europe  in  their  gardens,  experimented  constantly 
with  grains  and  seeds,  cultivated  coffee  and  tobacco,  and 
made  thousands  of  cigars.  They  had  taught  the  natives 
brick  making  and  a  large  brick  cathedral  was  in  course 
of  construction. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  were  the  buildings  of  the  White 
Sisters.  One  of  the  four  was  from  Canada,  but  being  a 
French  Canadian  she  spoke  no  English.  Another  was 
German.  The  order  is  an  international  one,  founded 
by  Cardinal  Lavigerie.  French  is  the  universal  lan- 
guage. 

We  lunched  with  the  Fathers,  then  visited  the  Sisters 
and  photographed  them  among  their  roses ;  they  had  the 
sweet  and  tranquil  faces  of  women  who  have  yielded 
every  personal  expectation.  They  were  disappointed 
that  I  had  not  brought  Alice.  "To  have  seen  a  white 
child  I"  said  one  of  them. 

Another  interesting  excursion  that  we  made  about 
Kivu  was  to  the  lava  flow  at  the  end  of  the  lake.  The 
north  end  of  Kivu  is  the  fringe  of  that  volcanic  field  of 
which  the  eight  distant  separate  volcanic  peaks,  the 

94 


WHITE  SISTERS  AT  NYUNDE 


[page  94] 


MT.  CHANINAOONGO 


[page  94] 


NATIVE   FISHING  IK   Kivu 


[page  97] 


FLOW  OF  LAVA  ACROSS  LAKE  Kivu 


[page  97] 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

M'fumbiro,  dispute  with  the  Ruenzori  the  legendary 
title  of  Mountains  of  the  Moon. 

Certainly  these  mountains  are  the  farthest  source  of 
the  Nile,  for  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Sabinio, 
M'gahinga,  and  M'havura  volcanoes,  the  Nyjawaronga 
River  takes  its  rise,  drains  first  to  the  south,  becoming 
known  as  the  Kagera  River,  then  flows  north  and  finally 
empties  into  the  Victoria  Nyanza.  Also  the  Ruchuru 
River  rises  not  ten  miles  north  of  Sabinio  and  flows 
into  Lake  Edward,  thus  uniting  with  the  Nile  system. 

It  was  the  three  highest  peaks  of  these  Moon  Moun- 
tains that  were  our  objective  —  Mikeno,  Karisimbi, 
Visoke.  The  two  others  were  Chaninagonga  and  Nyam- 
lagira,  whose  craters  still  guarded  that  deep  fire  which 
had  flung  them  into  being.  East  and  west  of  this  group 
run  the  bastionlike  mountain  ranges  that  shut  in  the 
length  of  the  Kivu-Edward  Rift  valley,  and  these  moun- 
tains are  neither  of  volcanic  origin  nor  connected  in  any 
way  with  the  volcanoes  which  rise  from  the  floor  of  the 
valley  itself. 

The  north  shores  of  Kivu  are  of  lava  rock,  giving  an 
utterly  different  aspect  to  the  lake  than  that  of  the  green 
grass  hills  of  the  southern  setting.  This  M'fumbiro 
region  is  probably  the  area  of  some  of  the  most  recent 
volcanic  activity  in  the  world,  but  practically  nothing 
of  its  history  is  known  and  but  very  little  yet  recon- 
structed. We  are  indebted  to  the  fortunate  chance  of  a 
visit  of  Sir  Alfred  Sharpe,  formerly  governor  of  Nyasa- 
land,  to  the  shores  of  Kivu  in  December,  1912,  for  the 
account  of  an  eye-witness  to  a  violent  eruption  which 
altered  the  entire  northern  extremity  of  the  lake. 

95 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

From  a  fissure  in  the  earth  about  two  miles  north  of 
the  shore,  a  fissure  that  speedily  developed  into  a  small 
cone  from  the  rocks  and  ash  and  cinder  flung  up,  there 
had  come  such  a  tremendous  outpouring  of  molten  lava 
that  the  north  end  of  Kivu,  already  an  inlet  in  character 
through  the  irregularity  of  its  shore  line,  was  almost 
shut  off.  Entire  tracts  of  the  country  were  destroyed 
and  hundreds  of  natives  killed ;  it  was  the  Last  Days  of 
Pompeii  for  many  a  luckless  village.  The  boiling  lava 
poured  into  the  lake  in  such  quantities  that  the  water 
seethed  for  twelve  miles  out  and  many  fleeing  natives 
who  escaped  the  fiery  rocks  and  engulfing  lava  by 
launching  their  hollow  log  canoes  were  capsized  into  the 
scalding  waters  and  fairly  boiled  to  death.  Walikali,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  west,  was  covered  with  ash  and 
the  sound  of  the  eruptions  was  heard  as  far  as  Pili-Pili, 
two  hundred  miles  away. 

Everything  had  been  quiet  now  for  ten  years,  so  we 
felt  it  fairly  safe  to  visit  the  devastations.  By  paying 
for  the  precious  gasoline  we  obtained  the  privilege  of 
using  the  governmental  launch  for  the  day,  and  with 
the  Van  Saceghems  and  Monsieur  Jungas,  the  Pro- 
cur  eur  du  Rot,  a  judge  of  the  highest  court  in  Stanley- 
ville, who  was  making  his  rounds  with  his  assistant,  we 
made  an  excursion  to  it.  It  took  about  four  hours  by 
boat  to  reach  the  long  tongue  of  lava  reaching  out  from 
the  rocky  entrance  to  the  Kabinia  Inlet,  as  the  north 
end  of  the  lake  is  called ;  we  managed  after  considerable 
difficulty  to  find  a  place  on  the  rugged  shore  where  we 
could  make  a  landing.  Then  for  some  time  we  explored 
the  extraordinary  field  of  lava,  solidified  in  streams  and 

96 


THE  SUMMIT  OF  AFRICA 

swirls  like  frozen  black  whipped  cream  over  which  the 
green  of  lichen  was  creeping,  and  in  whose  crevices  the 
first  long  grass  and  wild  flowers  were  finding  root,  while 
wild  morning  glories  spread  out  like  an  old-fashioned 
floral  carpet  before  us. 

On  our  return  we  saw  through  the  mists  of  the  after- 
noon rain  the  shrouded  outlines  of  Nyamlagira,  whose 
fire  made  the  ruddy  glow  each  night  on  our  horizon,  and 
the  cloud-wrapped  peaks  of  Mikeno  and  Karisimbi,  our 
distant  gorilla  heights. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 
INTO  THE  GORILLA  FORESTS  OF  MOUNT  MIKENO 

IT  was  November  the  ninth  that  my  husband  and  I 
and  Martha  Miller  and  Priscilla  Hall  and  little  Alice 
and  a  string  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  porters  left  our 
camp  at  Kissenyi  and  started  on  the  three-day  march  to 
the  Mission  of  the  White  Fathers  on  the  slopes  of  Mi- 
keno,  from  which  we  expected  to  make  our  ascent  after 
gorillas. 

Mr.  Akeley,  with  thirty  porters,  had  left  ten  days 
before  and  was  now  encamped  on  the  heights  from 
which  he  sent  down  constant  news  by  runner.  His  re- 
ports of  the  conditions  under  which  he  had  been  able 
to  see  gorillas  were  full  of  disheartening  difficulties,  but 
the  fact  remained  that  he  had  been  able  to  see  them  and 
obtain  some  desired  specimens  for  his  group,  so  Miss 
Miller  and  I  were  undiscouraged.  We  were  prepared 
to  climb  and  crawl  and  freeze,  but  we  were  going  to  see 
gorillas.  We  had  not  come  up  the  long  trail  from  the 
Cape  to  be  turned  back  by  any  hardships  now. 

The  reports  which  we  obtained  from  Mr.  Barns  of 
the  conditions  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain  were 
more  heartening.  Mr.  Barns  had  come  down  one  side 
as  Mr.  Akeley  had  gone  up  the  other.  He  passed  within 
a  few  hours'  journey  of  Kissenyi  and  Herbert  and  I 
went  out  to  meet  him.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Barns  were  en- 

98 


THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

camped  near  Nyunde  drying  the  gorilla  skins,  and  from 
there  he  was  going  on  after  some  monkeys  and  chim- 
panzees. These  English  people  were  a  very  interesting 
couple ;  he  was  a  tall,  spare,  black-haired  man,  about  six 
feet  two,  who  had  tired  of  a  Rhodesian  ranch  and  had 
turned  his  hunting  to  collecting ;  his  wife  was  young  and 
vivacious,  with  bobbed,  curly  hair;  for  eleven  years  she 
had  been  in  Africa  with  him,  never  hunting  herself,  but 
sharing  the  dangers  of  the  life. 

Some  years  before  he  had  shot  a  gorilla  that  was 
mounted  by  Ward  for  the  Rothschild  Museum;  and  now 
he  had  come  for  gorillas  for  the  British  Museum  and 
had  secured  three  for  a  family  group.  They  were  beau- 
tiful skins,  the  female  and  young  one  very  black  and 
shaggy  like  bears,  the  male  with  the  distinguishing  sil- 
ver-haired back.  This  male  had  an  even  larger  head 
than  the  one  Mr.  Barns  had  shot  two  years  before;  it 
stood  five  feet  three  and  three-quarter  inches  high, 
measuring  seven  feet  six  and  a  half  inches  from  the 
ground  to  the  finger  tip.  From  finger  to  finger  it 
measured  seven  feet  six  inches  and  the  chest  measured 
fifty-seven  inches.  The  chest  measure  of  his  former 
gorilla  was  sixty-three  inches. 

He  had  come  up  with  this  old  male  in  an  open  space 
on  the  edge  of  a  precipitous  ravine  high  on  Mikeno,  and 
the  gorilla  had  started  towards  him,  roaring  and  beating 
his  breast.  This  was  quite  like  Du  Chaillu's  description 
of  their  behavior  and  I  asked  Mr.  Barns  if  he  consid- 
ered this  a  charge  on  sight  from  a  gorilla,  and  he  said 
he  couldn't  say — the  beast  might  have  been  acting  from 
surprise  or  alarm  and  trying  to  intimidate  him.  But 

99 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

he  certainly  started  towards  Mr.  Barns.  In  the  brute's 
excitement  his  progress  on  his  hind  legs  was  unstable, 
and  after  coming  a  little  distance  he  stumbled  and  fell 
down  the  clifflike  ravine  he  had  been  skirting.  The  fall 
knocked  the  fight  out  of  him.  Mr.  Barns  went  down 
the  ravine  after  him  and  followed  through  the  jungle 
for  an  hour  and  a  half  before  coming  up  with  him.  Then 
he  killed  him  with  a  single  shot. 

The  perfection  of  the  modern  weapon  does  not  give 
the  gorilla  the  chance  he  had  in  the  old  muzzle-loading 
days.  In  almost  every  story  I  had  heard  of  recent 
gorilla"  hunting  the  gorilla  had  been  taken  by  surprise 
and  shot  at  once.  If  wounded  he  would  very  naturally 
turn  on  his  attacker;  whether  he  would  charge  on  sight, 
if  unattacked,  was  something  we  did  not  know. 

Mr.  Akeley  believed  he  would  not.  My  husband  and 
I  had  no  pretensions  to  a  conviction  of  any  sort,  but  we 
were  going  to  try  to  meet  a  gorilla  on  his  native  heath 
and  find  out  what  he  would  do  about  it. 

Mr.  Barns  had  one  bit  of  evidence  as  to  the  behavior 
of  the  female  of  the  species.  He  told  of  crawling  half 
an  hour  on  his  hands  and  knees  through  the  bamboos 
and  then  coming  suddenly  face  to  face  with  an  old  lady 
gorilla.  She  was  as  much  surprised  as  he  was  and  evi- 
dently had  no  desire  to  continue  the  chance  acquaint- 
ance, for  she  made  off  at  all  speed.  He  let  her  escape, 
for  he  was  on  the  hunt  for  a  male. 

After  seeing  the  gorilla  skins,  the  gorillas  themselves 
seemed  more  real  and  less  legendary,  but  there  were  so 
many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  discovering  them,  and  it 
was  all  such  a  matter  of  chance  in  spite  of  the  hardest 

100 


THE  WHITE  FATHERS  AT  LULENGA  MISSIOX 

Left  to  Right— The  Frere  Hyacinth,  the  Pere  Provoost,  the  Pere  Vander 
Handt,  the  Pere  Superieur  Von  Hoef 

[page  103] 


LULENGA   VALLEY.     MISSION   WHITE   FATHERS 


[page  103] 


THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

sort  of  pursuit,  that  we  did  not  feel  in  the  least  sure 
whether  we  three  amateurs  would  have  any  real  luck 
or  not.  But  we  meant  to  stick  it  out  until  we  saw  some- 
thing of  them. 

We  marched  through  very  beautiful  country  the  first 
day  out  from  Kissenyi,  with  magnificent  views  of  the 
volcanoes.  Monsieur  Wera,  the  chef-de-poste  at  Kis- 
senyi, had  lent  me  his  donkey  for  that  first  day's  ride, 
much  to  Alice's  joy,  who  confiscated  it  half  the  time. 
Priscilla  and  Martha  alternated  walking  with  the 
machila  or  hammock.  The  camp  that  night  was  at 
Kibati,  with  a  marvelous  view  of  the  volcanoes  and  of 
Kivu. 

At  Kibati  a  little  enclosure  of  elephant  grass  shut 
in  eleven  graves  of  officers  dead  in  the  Great  War,  pa- 
thetic graves  marked  with  wooden  crosses  rudely 
carved,  weighted  down  with  stones  to  keep  the  beasts 
away,  encircled  with  the  roses  and  geraniums  from 
Europe  planted  by  some  kindly  hand,  and  shaded  by 
lemon  trees  and  plums.  We  walked  among  them  that 
afternoon.  .  .  . 

Ci  GIT  LE  CAPTAINE  I.  J.  DE  FOIN 

TOMBE  GLORIEUSEMENT  AU   TSAND  JARNWE 

27-11-1915 

LE  SOUS-OFFICIER  J.  L.  DE  VoLDEE 

TUB  A  I/ENNEMI  EN  PORTANT  SECOURS  A  SON  CHEF 

A   LA   MEMOIRE   DU    SOUS-OFFICIER   ALFRED    DuPUIS 

MORT  EN  BRAVE 

J.  CORNESSE 

COMMANDANT — MORT   POUR  LA   PATRIE 
101 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

How  little  those  men  expected,  playing  as  short- 
socked  little  boys  in  some  trim  Belgian  garden,  to  come 
to  their  death  on  the  African  mountains  ...  to  lie 
weighted  with  lava  rock  to  keep  the  hyenas  away.  M ort 
pour  la  patrie!  .  .  .  What  forgotten  courage  and  de- 
spair had  played  their  hour  in  those  trenches  that  zig- 
zagged the  mountain  sides,  overrun  already  with  obliv- 
ious green. 

Our  second  day's  march  brought  us  to  Bubonde,  the 
territory  of  Burunga,  an  independent  old  chief  or  sul- 
tan, who  had  an  evil  name  among  the  missionaries  for 
robbing  caravans.  The  disorders  of  war  times  had 
given  him  quite  a  field  for  activities,  but  now  he  was 
reduced  to  cheating  his  neighbors  in  the  matter  of  cows. 
It  was  rumored  that  he  was  to  have  a  white  man  for  a 
son-in-law;  that  a  German  planter  who  had  exhausted 
white  credit  and  forbearance,  who  had  tried  everything 
in  fact  but  work,  after  much  lolling  in  an  easy  chair, 
drinking  pombe,  and  overseeing  his  workers  through 
opera  glasses,  had  decided  to  "go  native,"  and,  for  the 
sake  of  Burunga's  cows  and  shambas,  was  taking  one  of 
his  daughters  in  marriage.  Usually  a  man  pays  the 
father  for  a  wife.  The  planter  was  evidently  getting 
his  with  a  dower.  .  .  .  That  was  rumor.  I  tell  the 
tale  as  it  was  told  to  me. 

Leaving  Bubonde  the  third  morning  we  went  through 
thick  forest,  up  hill  and  down,  on  paths  that  were  harsh 
lava  rock.  Lovely  pink  flowers,  like  starry  orchids  but 
growing  on  silvery  green  bushes,  edged  our  way.  Two 
hours  brought  us  up  the  last  steep  climb  and  to  an 
opening  on  the  lower  slopes  of  Mikeno,  where  the 

102 


THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

thatched  roofs  of  the  Lulenga  Mission  showed  among 
the  shambas. 

Three  Fathers  and  a  Brother  occupy  the  Mission 
which  has  been  in  that  vicinity  twelve  years;  the  Pere 
Superieur  von  Hoef ,  the  Pere  Provoost,  the  Pere  Van 
der  Handt  and  the  Brother  Hyacinth.  They  hospitably 
installed  us  in  the  house  prepared  seven  years  before 
for  the  White  Sisters,  who  were  now  expected  each 
week;  I  said  something  about  the  seven  years'  wait 
for  Rachel;  kindly  they  overlooked  it.  It  was  a  long, 
low,  mud  house,  whitewashed  outside  and  in,  with  dirt 
floors  and  thatched  roof.  The  windows  had  wooden 
shutters;  there  were  no  screens  needed — any  glass,  of 
course,  did  not  exist.  At  Kissenyi,  Monsieur  Van 
Saceghem's  house  had  boasted  actual  window  panes, 
some  of  glass  from  photographic  plates,  and  some  from 
the  celluloid  of  old  films.  Little  schoolhouses,  three- 
sided  mud  affairs,  had  been  built  back  of  the  Sisters' 
house;  tilled  fields  stretched  on  the  steep  slopes  before; 
roses  were  planted  about  and  edged  the  straight  way 
north  to  the  Mission  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Church. 

It  seemed  heavenly  to  our  feminine  souls  to  have  a 
room  and  a  table  again ;  we  could  imagine  nothing  more 
luxurious  except  a  bureau  with  drawers.  Really  to 
appreciate  a  dresser  drawer  one  should  have  lived  in  a 
tent,  with  all  one's  belongings  incarcerated  in  barrel- 
like  bags,  and  the  desired  belonging  always  eluding 
one's  blind  groping. 

Before  the  house  stretched  a  marvelous  view  of  the 
Rift  Valley — green  hills  reaching  down  to  wide- 
spreading  lava-fields  from  which  rose  the  small  craters 

103 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  cones  of  the  valley  floor,  and  across  from  us  the 
shadowy  slopes  of  the  mountains  that  guarded  the  west. 
South  of  them  rose  the  beautiful  outlines  of  Nyamlagira 
and  Chaninagongo,  above  whose  craters  hung  a  ruddy 
smoke.  Chaninagongo  smokes  rather  lazily,  but  Nyam- 
lagira has  been  steadily  active  since  its  last  eruption 
seven  years  ago,  and  at  night  the  glow  from  that  crater 
was  a  flame  in  the  sky. 

Lulenga  Mission  has  been  the  lodestar  of  gorilla- 
seekers  ever  since  the  discovery  of  true  gorillas  in  the 
heart  of  equatorial  Africa.  Gorillas  had  always  been 
associated  with  low,  west  coast  jungles  of  the  Gaboon, 
but  twenty  years  ago  an  Englishman,  Quentin  Grogan, 
on  his  famous  two-year  walk  from  Cape  to  Cairo  found 
the  skeleton  of  a  true  gorilla  in  the  equatorial  moun- 
tains. 

Later,  occasional  rumors  of  great  apes  up  in  the 
bamboos  were  carried  by  the  natives  to  the  white  men, 
but  the  apes  were  supposed  to  be  chimpanzees  whose 
presence  was  already  known. 

Then  about  thirteen  years  ago  an  Austrian,  Grauer, 
passed  through  Nairobi  with  some  gorilla  skins  he  had 
obtained  in  the  mountains  of  what  was  then  the  western 
edge  of  German  East.  The  first  gorilla  of  which  the 
Mission  had  any  record  was  that  shot  by  Count  Pau- 
wels  in  the  commencement  of  1913.  At  the  end  of 
1913  Count  Arhenius  made  a  successful  hunt  in  the 
bamboos.  Eight  years  later  he  returned  with  Prince 
William  of  Sweden  on  an  expedition  which  was  just 
leaving  the  Congo  as  we  came  into  it.  The  Prince 
had  made  his  camp  here  at  the  Mission  and  shot  his 

104 


THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

first  gorilla  here  in  the  forest  just  an  hour  from  the 
camp.  The  other  members  of  his  party,  even  the  sol- 
diers, had  killed  others,  so  altogether  fourteen  were 
slaughtered. 

There  were  moments  when  we  wondered  anxiously 
if  there  were  any  gorillas  left  for  us,  anything  but  lone 
widows  and  undergrown  youths.  Of  course  a  gorilla 
was  a  gorilla,  but  it  was  the  grown  male  who  had  given 
the  legend  of  ferocity  to  his  race. 

I  had  brought  with  me  Du  Chaillu's  description  of  his 
first  sight  of  one. 

The  underbrush  swayed  slightly  just  ahead,  and  presently 
before  us  stood  an  immense  male  gorilla.  He  had  gone  through 
the  jungle  on  all  fours;  but  when  he  saw  our  party  he  erected 
himself  and  looked  us  boldly  in  the  face.  He  stood  about  a 
dozen  yards  from  us  and  was  a  sight  I  think  never  to  forget. 
Nearly  six  feet  high  (he  proved  two  inches  shorter)  with 
immense  body,  huge  chest,  and  great  muscular  arms,  with 
fiercely  glaring  large  deep  gray  eyes,  and  a  hellish  expression 
of  face,  which  seemed  to  me  like  some  nightmare  vision;  thus 
stood  before  us  the  king  of  the  African  forests.  .  .  . 

His  eyes  began  to  flash  a  fiercer  fire  as  we  stood  motionless 
on  the  defensive,  and  the  crest  of  short  hair  which  stands  on 
his  forehead  began  to  twitch  rapidly  up  and  down,  while  his 
powerful  fangs  were  shown  as  he  again  sent  forth  a  thunderous 
roar.  And  now  truly  he  reminded  me  of  nothing  but  some 
hellish  dream  creature — a  being  of  that  hideous  order,  half 
beast,  half  man,  which  we  find  pictured  by  old  artists  in  repre- 
sentations of  the  infernal  regions. 

In  the  hope  of  meeting  the  gentleman  of  this  descrip- 
tion we  started  off  up  the  mountain  at  six  o'clock  the 
morning  after  our  arrival  at  the  Mission. 

105 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

It  was  a  lovely  morning,  sweet  and  fresh,  with  that 
feeling  of  spring  that  mornings  have  in  Africa.  We 
were  mounted  on  a  mule  and  donkey  belonging  to  the 
White  Fathers,  with  guides  running  ahead  and  boys 
coming  after  with  guns  and  water  bottles  and  camera. 
We  rode  nearly  an  hour  up  the  steep  foothills  of 
Mikeno. 

Back  of  us  the  brown  roofs  of  the  Mission  grew 
smaller  and  smaller,  the  waving  fronds  of  the  banana 
plantations  merged  into  a  sea  of  green  darker  and  more 
glistening  than  the  tender  green  of  the  fresh  grass  about 
them.  The  great  plain  of  lava  on  the  valley  floor 
stretched  wider  and  wider  as  we  mounted  higher,  and 
across  it  the  miles  and  miles  of  mountain  peaks  were 
blue  against  the  sky. 

Ahead  of  us  the  sharp,  craggy  peak  of  Mikeno  stood 
out  in  bold  relief,  with  glistening  clouds  floating  below 
it,  shining  with  the  first  sunlight.  It  was  a  stiff  climb 
and  our  hearts  ached  for  the  puffing  mules  struggling 
up  the  slippery,  narrow  path  of  mud,  but  we  let  our 
hearts  ache  and  conserved  our  legs. 

At  seven  we  were  on  the  edge  of  the  forest,  and 
started  on  foot  up  a  narrow  path,  tilted  at  a  violent 
incline,  a  path  like  a  greased  chute  of  mud.  It  might 
have  been  a  rush  of  water  after  a  heavy  rain,  but  now 
the  mud  was  a  smooth  spread,  sometimes  a  slippery 
smear  over  rocks,  sometimes  a  slough  of  incredible 
depth. 

The  trees  shut  us  in,  the  vines  netted  us  like  basket 
work.  The  guides  climbed  ahead,  my  husband  after, 
his  gunbearer  behind,  then  I  followed  with  my  gun  boy 

106 


THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

behind  me.  We  kept  our  eyes  sharply  on  the  path  and 
suddenly  I  saw  in  it  a  print,  perfect  in  the  soft  mud. 

It  was  a  hand  print,  the  fingers  doubled  under,  show- 
ing the  marks  of  four  knuckles  and  a  thumb.  A  little 
ahead  were  the  outspread  toe  prints,  where  Herbert 
and  guides  were  pausing  as  I  saw  the  hand  marks. 

They  were  gorilla  prints,  freshly  made.  The  guide 
declared  them  "Kubwa,  kubwa"  (Big,  big),  which  was 
stirring.  The  gorilla  had  been  walking  along  the  path, 
helping  himself  by  his  low  hanging  fists.  He  avoided 
the  deep  mud,  keeping  to  one  side  of  the  chute  where 
the  ground  was  what  I  should  call  mushy,  but  mere 
mush  had  no  terrors  for  him. 

We  followed  with  a  feeling  of  tremendous  exhilara- 
tion. It  was  the  actual  mark  of  the  great  beast  we  had 
come  so  far  to  see;  he  was  there  somewhere  ahead  of 
us,  hidden  in  a  turning  of  the  green  thicket — any  mo- 
ment a  parting  of  the  leaves  might  show  us  his  black, 
twitching  face  and  sparkling  eyes. 

We  ordered  the  camera  boy  to  keep  close  and  we 
kept  the  gun  boys  extremely  close.  We  had  been 
cautioned  not  to  trust  our  guns  to  these  carriers  who 
were  not  gun  boys  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  and  were 
quite  likely  to  cast  the  guns  away  and  run  at  a  critical 
moment.  However,  the  climbing  was  much  too  hard  to 
do  with  a  gun  in  our  hands  and  we  took  our  chances. 

At  every  turn  we  gazed  about  hopefully,  remember- 
ing that  the  Pere  Van  Hoef ,  the  Father  Superior  at  the 
Mission,  when  hunting  with  the  prince,  had  suddenly 
seen  and  shot  a  gorilla  in  the  branches  of  the  tree  just 
by  his  head,  but  no  ape  disclosed  itself.  The  path,  how- 

107 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

ever,  revealed  interesting  secrets.  Here  were  antelope 
tracks;  here  was  the  sudden  spring  of  a  leopard,  half 
dried  in  the  sun.  Suddenly  it  ceased  to  be  a  path  and 
became  a  series  of  artesian  wells.  These  were  elephant 
tracks  like  bottomless  pits,  freshly  made,  with  water 
still  slipping  into  them. 

They  were  difficult  to  negotiate  if  one  tried  to  step 
across  and  balance  on  the  mud  ridge  between,  but  we 
clung  to  the  bushes  at  the  side  and  got  on.  Finally  the 
tracks  crossed  off  to  the  left  where  we  saw  tusk  marks 
on  a  tree  trunk. 

It  made  me  remember  poignantly  that  the  large  gun 
was  at  the  Mission.  Herbert  and  I  were  each  carrying 
a  Springfield.  We  had  nothing  heavier  for  a  charging 
elephant.  I  remembered  it  again,  even  more  poignantly 
when  a  tiny  sound  held  us  motionless.  It  was  a  snap- 
ping and  tearing  of  twigs. 

The  guide  crept  closer.  His  low-breathed  "Tembo" 
(elephant)  was  almost  inaudible  in  his  anxiety  not  to 
be  overheard.  I  stared  hard  at  the  bamboo  screen,  but 
it  was  impenetrable.  I  hadn't  the  faintest  idea  how 
far  away  that  elephant  was  breakfasting,  but  I  had 
no  desire  to  find  out. 

We  were  then  entering  the  bamboos,  a  forest  of  tall, 
slender  stalks  and  delicate  leaves,  all  netted  and  inter- 
woven with  vines.  It  was  colder  here,  so  gray  that  the 
sun  seemed  to  be  under  a  cloud.  We  pressed  harder 
on  the  trail,  trying  to  catch  up  with  that  gorilla,  and 
suddenly  came  into  a  little  clearing,  sun  flooded,  filled 
with  delicious  young  growth,  a  heavenly  place  for  a 
picture  of  a  gorilla  at  breakfast. 

108 


THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

No  applicant  appeared.  Instead  the  spoor  vanished. 
We  paused  to  let  our  guides  munch  some  hard,  berry- 
like  grain  and  smoke  their  black  clay  pipes,  while  we  ate 
chocolate  and  crackers;  then  we  urged  them  to  fresh 
effort.  But  the  trail  was  lost. 

They  led  us  at  last  to  one  of  the  innumerable  little 
trails  that  led  out  from  the  morass  through  the  creep- 
ing vines,  and  on  we  went  into  ever  dimmer  and  more 
impenetrable  solitudes.  Hanging  vines  hung  down 
like  tapestries  and  a  network  of  them  veiled  the  under- 
growth. The  guides  hacked  away  with  their  sickles 
and  we  wormed  our  way  along,  often  forced  to  crawl  on 
all  fours  through  some  bad  bits.  This  went  on  for 
hours.  The  guides  had  apparently  given  up  all  hope  of 
a  gorilla,  but  were  going  to  earn  their  francs  by  exer- 
cising us. 

We  kept  on  doggedly  till  at  last,  discouraged  by  our 
persistence,  they  united  in  calling  it  a  day  and  began 
to  slide  down  the  ravinelike  sides.  We  got  back  after 
seven  hours,  heartily  tired,  having  accomplished  noth- 
ing of  the  morning's  hopes  but  the  sight  of  that  gorilla 
trail,  yet  we  had  spent  a  thoroughly  fascinating  day. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF  KARISIMBI 

THE  GORILLA  HUNT  IN  WHICH  HERBERT  GETS 
THE  BIG  MALE  OF  KARISIMBI 

WE  had  intended  starting  again  on  Monday,  but  a 
runner  from  Mr.  Akeley  caused  us  to  change  our  plans. 
He  wrote  that  he  was  ill,  that  he  had  "broken  some- 
thing." So,  on  Monday,  Herbert  and  Martha  Miller 
and  I  and  sixty  porters  started  up  the  mountain  to  his 
camp,  leaving  Alice  and  Priscilla  Hall  in  the  White 
Sisters'  house.  It  was  a  great  comfort  to  have  them 
there,  where  the  untiring,  kind  Fathers  did  everything 
possible  for  them. 

Mr.  Akeley  had  written  that  we  had  better  take  two 
days  to  the  trip  as  only  veterans  might  make  it  in  one, 
but  we  felt  decidedly  veteranish  by  now,  and,  as  his 
letter  made  us  anxious,  determined  to  get  through  at 
all  cost.  We  had  not  gone  more  than  three  hours  before 
we  came  up  with  the  porters  opening  their  loads  with 
unusual  alacrity;  the  cook  was  busy  spreading  out  his 
magnificent  red  mattress  which  constituted  an  entire 
porter's  load. 

This  was  in  a  damp  glade  on  the  mountainside,  and 
the  march  we  had  made  was  not  a  day's  work,  so  I — 
being  ahead — told  them  to  go  on  with  all  the  vehemence 
and  Swahili  I  possessed.  ffPana  mazuri  hapa"  (not 

110 


THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF   KARISIMBI 

good  here)  was  repeated  vigorously  until  they  got  up 
and  hoisted  their  loads  upon  their  heads.  They  didn't 
really  hope  to  put  it  over,  the  headmen  had  been  told 
at  the  Mission  they  were  to  go  all  the  way,  but  they 
considered  it  decidedly  worth  trying. 

Later  I  was  to  hear  that  Pana  mazuri  flung  back  at 
me  by  a  half  a  hundred  of  them  as  they  slipped  and 
sloshed  and  scrambled  up  that  mountain's  sides. 

We  had  thought  we  could  go  up  in  six  hours.  It  took 
us  nine.  The  last  six  hours  were  a  steady,  interminable 
climb,  up  through  the  forest,  into  the  bamboos,  through 
the  bamboos  into  a  higher  forest  again.  The  path  was 
the  same  sort  of  mud  chute  that  Herbert  and  I  had 
climbed  before,  and  we  had  to  cling  to  the  trees  at  the 
side  for  leverage. 

I  understood  then  why  soldiers  at  the  Front  had 
thrown  away  rations,  water,  ammunition.  Sometimes 
every  step  seemed  literally  the  last  possible  effort.  The 
altitude  had  its  effect,  of  course,  in  conjunction  with 
the  continual  struggle. 

There  were  times,  about  the  sixth  hour,  when  we 
found  cheer  in  song,  peculiarly  suitable  songs  such  as 
"There's  a  long,  long  trail  a- winding,"  and  "Smile, 
smile,  smile,"  but  after  that  our  breath  gave  out  and 
we  saved  it  for  such  valuable  speech  as  "Rest  here—, 
we  can  take  the  day  to  it." 

But  our  spirits  did  not  flag.  When  Herbert,  fol- 
lowing our  steps  and  watching  us,  chuckled  at  the  load 
of  mud  that  went  up  and  down  with  each  foot  and  an- 
nounced that  we  wouldn't  do  for  fairy-footed  partners 

111 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

at  a  dance,  we  looked  at  his  own  weighted  feet  and 
assured  him  of  his  complete  unsuitability. 

At  intervals  he  cheered  us  on  by  telling  us  we  were 
going  to  be  the  only  women  in  the  world  who  had  seen 
wild  gorillas.  We  retorted  that  we  hoped  they'd  appre- 
ciate the  trouble  we  were  taking  and  if  a  wild  gorilla 
would  only  appear  and  perform  that  much  advertised 
act  of  carrying  women  off  we  wouldn't  offer  any  resist- 
ance. 

The  end  of  the  ninth  hour  we  reached  the  camp,  and 
found  Mr.  Akeley  looking  as  if  years  instead  of  days 
had  intervened.  He  was  very  worn;  he  had  done  the 
work  of  ten  men  under  particularly  trying  conditions; 
he  had  started  with  a  fever,  infected  by  jiggers  which 
he  had  not  been  able  to  extract ;  he  had  killed  his  gorillas 
in  most  inaccessible  places  where  the  natives  had  balked 
at  following;  he  had  skinned  and  skeletonized  and  dis- 
sected without  rest,  and  now  energy  and  appetite  had 
deserted  him.  What  was  broken,  he  said,  was  his  vigor. 
We  felt  troubled  when  we  first  saw  him,  but  a  good 
dinner,  an  incentive  toward  appetite,  began  to  make 
him  feel  better. 

The  camp  was  high  on  Mikeno,  the  mountain's  citadel- 
like  crags  above,  a  world  of  forest  and  valleys  and 
mountains  at  its  feet,  with  clouds  floating  up  the  chasms 
and  stealing  among  the  trees.  There  was  only  a  tiny 
clearing  for  the  tents  with  the  porter's  huts  of  grass 
tucked  in  behind;  the  gorilla  skeletons  were  hanging 
from  poles  in  grisly  sociability,  while  from  the  tent  of 
Mr.  Akeley  hung  a  small,  mummified  figure,  a  skinned 

112 


OUE   OBJECTIVE — THE    GORILLA    TRIANGLE.      MT.    MIKENO    IN    FOREGROUND, 
MT.   KARISIMBI   AT   RIGHT   AND   MT.    VISOKE,   LEFT 

[page  112] 


GORILLA  CAMP  ON  MT.  MIKEXO 


[page  112] 


WHERE   GORILLAS   LIVE — THE   FAIRY   FORESTS   OF   KARISIMBI 

[page  115] 


THE  Bio  GORILLA  OF  KARISIMBI  SHOT  BY  HERBERT  E.  BRADLEY 

[page  115] 


THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF   KARISIMBI 

and  dried  two-year-old  gorilla  whom   we   christened 
"Clarence." 

Beside  securing  his  specimens,  Mr.  Akeley  had  ful- 
filled the  hope  which  had  been  only  a  dream  of  the  expe- 
dition :  he  had  taken  motion  pictures  of  wild  gorillas — a 
mother  and  two  little  ones — something  that  had  never 
before  been  done. 

The  next  day  we  spent  quietly  in  camp.  Wednesday, 
we  left  our  boy  Kiani  in  charge  of  things  there  and 
started  off  to  make  camp  higher  upon  the  ridge  between 
Mikeno  and  Karisimbi. 

It  was  a  two-hours'  climb  and  we  camped  in  a  glade 
full  of  flowers,  wild  carrot,  and  buttercup,  with  a  marsh 
before  us,  reaching  to  the  forested  side  of  Karisimbi. 

Balmy  as  that  glade  was  in  the  noonday  sun,  the 
night  was  a  revelation  of  Arctic  chill.  Our  prepara- 
tions for  bed  were  elaborate,  but  even  so,  the  tempera- 
ture surprised  us,  and  what  it  did  to  our  scantily  clad 
porters,  huddling  blanketless  in  grass  huts  about  their 
smoky  little  fires,  we  could  more  than  surmise  from  their 
conversation  during  the  night  and  morning. 

It  did  not  actually  freeze.  It  was  like  northern  Wis- 
consin in  late  October,  when  your  breath  hangs  in  a  cold 
cloud  in  the  air  before  you.  We  had  no  camp  fire,  for 
the  wood  was  wet  and  smoky,  and  we  had  only  an  iron 
bucket  of  wood  coals  to  warm  the  tents. 

Thursday  we  started  out  for  the  gorilla  pictures 
which  it  was  the  hope  to  get  before  adding  any  other 
specimen  to  the  group.  The  guides  led  us  up  the  Kar- 
isimbi slopes — only  slopes  is  too  gentle  a  word — and 
we  climbed  and  climbed. 

113 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

We  were  in  a  fairy  forest,  trees  gray  with  lichen  and 
green  with  cushioning  moss,  trees  dripping  with  ferns 
and  garlanded  with  vines.  When  the  sun  shone  through 
that  forest  the  moss  gleamed  in  golden  richness.  There 
were  trees  with  sharp,  down-pointed  leaves,  with  a  rus- 
set glow  from  the  leaf  stalk,  that  hung  like  a  jeweled 
filigree  against  the  tropic  blue  of  the  sky.  There  were 
clouds  of  pink,  orchidlike  flowers,  that  were  not  para- 
sites like  orchids,  but  grew  on  silver  green  bushes,  and 
everywhere  were  snowy  reaches  of  wild  carrot  and  wild 
parsnip  and  the  familiar  pungency  of  crushed  catnip. 

There  are  no  words  to  describe  that  forest.  Pictures 
can  give  but  faint  clues.  It  was  a  magic  spot.  Arthur 
Rackham  has  dreamed  some  of  its  moods,  some  of  its 
wizard  trees  with  long  curved  arms,  its  crooked,  bend- 
ing groves,  like  magicians  in  flight;  but  its  color,  its 
delicacy,  the  infinite  fragility  of  its  moods,  the  seduc- 
tion of  every  line,  the  subtle  revelation  of  its  lights 
are  beyond  dreams. 

We  found  no  gorilla  that  day.  We  found  rasp- 
berries instead,  enormously  large  and  extremely  green, 
and  we  also  found  fresh  traces  of  buffalo.  The  guides 
were  eager  about  both.  They  consumed  the  berries  and 
pointed  out  the  traces  of  "yama"  (meat)  eagerly,  so  we 
concluded  that  they  had  gone  upon  a  replenishing 
expedition.  After  five  and  a  half  hours  of  thorough 
exercise  we  went  back  to  camp,  having  cleaned  up  that 
section  and  found  no  gorilla  trails. 

Friday  opened  with  glorious  sunshine  and  an  ulti- 
matum from  the  guides.  They  were  going.  The  cold 
nights  prevailed  over  the  passion  for  francs.  They  had 

114 


THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF  KARISIMBI 

enough  now  anyway  for  several  wives  and  a  long  life- 
time of  ease.  However,  they  were  prevailed  upon  to 
wait  one  more  day  and  we  started  forth  in  haste  before 
they  changed  their  minds. 

This  time  we  took  another  trail  up  the  Karisimbi 
heights,  with  ever  more  and  more  glorious  views  as  we 
climbed.  At  last  Mr.  Akeley  halted.  "This  is  the  most 
beautiful  place  in  the  world  and  I  am  going  to  photo- 
graph it,"  he  announced  with  a  certain  defiance,  know- 
ing the  guides  viewed  any  dallying  with  the  cameras 
with  distaste.  They  understood  a  gun ;  the  camera  was, 
to  them,  resultless. 

But  he  did  not;  as  he  poised  his  machine,  the  men 
pointed.  On  the  slopes  to  the  left  the  bushes  were 
waving,  giving  a  glimpse  of  something  like  a  black 
bear. 

Hurriedly  we  marshaled  in  line  and  scrambled  up  the 
trail,  then  in  and  out  the  trees  and  bushes,  Herbert  and 
Mr.  Akeley  first,  then  Martha  and  I,  our  gun  boys, 
though  relieved  of  our  guns,  hurrying  excitedly  after 
us.  We  went  under  a  hollow  tree  feet  first  and  emerged 
on  the  other  side  with  a  clear  view  of  the  slopes  before 
us.  There,  on  the  steep  mountainside  stood  a  gigantic 
creature,  black  and  shaggy.  My  first  impression  was 
of  shoulders  —  incredible  shoulders  —  huge,  uncouth, 
slouching  shoulders.  His  side  was  toward  us  and  his 
back  was  silver  gray.  We  were  seeing  at  last  the  great 
beast  we  had  come  so  far  to  see — a  male  gorilla  in  his 
savage  haunts. 

It  seemed  an  eternity  before  my  husband  fired.  I 
suppose  it  was  only  an  instant  or  two.  The  roar  of 

115 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  gun  sounded  as  unreal  in  the  silence  as  the  sight  of 
the  gorilla.  Immediately  the  gorilla  went  crashing 
down  into  the  welter  of  vegetation.  We  thought  him 
dead  and  raced  down  towards  him  after  Herbert,  but 
we  then  found  he  had  made  off,  leaving  a  trail  of  crushed 
greenery  and  blood.  For  a  few  moments  the  waving 
bushes  gave  us  the  only  clue,  then  he  emerged  on  the 
slopes  above  and  looked  back  over  his  shaggy  shoulder 
as  the  gun  crashed  again,  as  if  trying  to  comprehend 
this  sudden  assault  upon  his  solitudes.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  humanness  of  that  black,  upturned  face. 

Then  he  went  plunging  down  the  slope,  passing  near 
Herbert,  who  put  in  a  finishing  shot.  The  great  body 
struck  against  a  tree  and  lay  still.  There  had  been  no 
sound  from  him,  no  bark  or  roar.  He  had  shown  no 
instinct  of  fight,  nothing  but  the  rush  of  a  wounded 
beast  to  escape. 

We  found  him  dead  against  the  tree,  face  down,  a 
huge,  shaggy,  primeval  thing,  like  something  summoned 
out  of  the  vanished  ages.  And  the  scene  in  which  he  lay 
had  a  beauty  that  was  like  nothing  earthly. 

From  that  high  place,  whose  forested  slopes  swept 
down,  down,  like  a  green  flood  to  the  distant  valleys  and 
the  blue  sheen  of  Kivu,  we  looked  out  across  to  the  pur- 
ple heights  of  Chaninagongo  and  ISTyamlagira,  crested 
with  clouds  that  were  golden  with  sun  and  rose  with 
volcanic  fires.  To  our  right,  sharply  silhouetted  against 
the  distant  azure  and  amethyst,  stretched  the  superb 
slope  of  Mikeno  edged  with  delicate  little  trees,  ex- 
quisite miniatures  relieving  that  long  line,  that  went 

116 


THE  BIG  GORILLA  OF  KARISIMBI 

up,  up,  to  the  citadel  crag  of  the  top,  glowing  with 
umbers  and  emerald  moss. 

The  gorilla  proved  a  huge  gray-backed  male.  When 
he  was  tugged  and  propped  upright  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  impression  he  made.  The  great  girth,  the  thick- 
ness and  length  of  arm,  the  astounding  shoulders  made 
him  a  giant. 

His  face  was  ferocious  only  when  the  mouth  was 
open.  The  normal  expression  was  of  a  curiously  mild 
and  patriarchal  dignity.  Without  being  sentimental 
you  could  see  in  that  face  a  gleam  of  patient  and  tragic 
surmise,  as  if  the  old  fellow  had  a  prescience  that  some- 
thing was  happening  in  the  world  against  which  his 
strength  was  of  no  avail — as  if  he  knew  the  security 
of  his  high  place  was  gone. 

For  generations  he  had  lived  without  fear.  He  preyed 
upon  no  one  for  his  food;  he  ate  the  wild  carrot  and 
fresh  greens,  disturbing  no  one  and  disturbed  by  none  of 
his  world.  He  could  have  crushed  a  lion  or  strangled 
it,  and  an  elephant,  if  gripped  by  the  trunk,  would 
have  no  thought  but  of  escape.  He  had  been  indeed 
the  King  of  the  African  forests. 

We  took  measurements  and  found  his  height  to  be 
five  feet  seven  and  a  half  inches;  the  reach  from  his 
upraised  hand  to  the  ground  eight  feet  and  two  inches, 
and  from  hand  to  hand  seven  feet  eight  and  a  half 
inches.  His  chest  was  between  sixty-two  and  sixty-three 
inches.  He  was,  we  feel  sure,  the  big  bull  of  Karisimbi, 
of  which  we  had  heard.  This  bull  had  been  shot  at  be- 
fore and  we  found  an  old  wound  in  the  hip,  which  had 

117 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

given  a  decided  curvature  of  the  spine,  shortening  the 
height. 

Looking  at  his  great  arm  and  curving  fingers,  the 
fist  as  big  as  a  man's  head,  I  could  understand  how 
unwary  hunters  in  the  old  days  had  been  scooped  out 
like  soft-shell  crabs. 

All  that  day  the  men  worked  on  the  gorilla,  for  Mr. 
Akeley  preserved  everything  for  museum  and  medical 
records.  They  paused  often  to  photograph  the  chang- 
ing clouds  and  mountains. 

It  was  a  marvelous  day!  The  sheer  beauty  of  it  was 
a  spell,  and  the  presence  of  this  great  gorilla  made  it 
seem  like  a  page  from  the  very  beginning  of  time. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  GORILLA  BAND 

GORILLAS  IN  GROUPS;  A  MOTION  PICTURE  HUNT 

THE  day  after  the  big  gorilla  of  Karisimbi  was  shot 
the  guides  all  left  us.  They  refused  to  endure  the  cold 
and  hardships  of  the  hunting  for  another  day.  They 
were  really  a  fine  lot  of  men,  the  Wahunde,  belonging 
to  the  Sultan  Burunga,  whose  shambas  were  perhaps  a 
quarter  of  the  way  up  the  mountain,  and  they  had  been 
working  hard  during  the  day  and  nearly  perishing  with 
cold  at  night. 

Sculpturally  they  were  magnificent  specimens,  and 
their  swinging  goat  skins  were  suitably  picturesque  for 
their  dark,  muscular  bodies,  but  a  girding  goat  skin  is 
small  protection  against  cold  by  night  and  against  net- 
tles by  day,  and  those  wonderful  forests  of  the  moun- 
tain heights  were  stingingly  alive  with  nettles. 

So  we  could  not  blame  the  guides  for  feeling  that 
they  had  had  enough  of  it,  although  we  saw  them  go 
with  regret,  and  the  boys  and  porters  eyed  their  depar- 
ture with  yearning  envy. 

Then  the  porters  gathered  and  frenziedly  announced 
that  they,  too,  were  going.  They  had  business,  urgent 
business,  elsewhere.  They  came  from  villages  beyond 
Kissenyi,  and  they  had  imperative  reasons  to  return 
to  them.  One  man  declared  he  had  to  accompany  his 

119 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

chief  on  an  expedition  to  Musinga's  court,  and  another 
remembered  suddenly  that  a  neighbor  had  threatened  to 
kill  his  son,  and  he  wanted  to  go  right  away  and  exter- 
minate that  neighbor.  Others  did  not  produce  any 
reasons,  but  stated  their  intentions. 

But  they  were  in  no  position  to  issue  ultimatums. 
We  could  not  control  the  guides  but  the  porters  had 
enlisted,  as  it  were,  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  and 
would  not  be  paid  until  we  came  down  from  the  hunt. 
With  all  their  pay  coming  to  them  and  the  extra  back- 
sheesh  they  were  to  receive  for  staying,  we  felt  fairly 
sure  that  they  would  not  desert. 

But  we  did  not  feel  that  we  could  keep  them  another 
night  in  that  high  altitude,  on  the  exposed  saddle  be- 
tween Karisimbi  and  Mikeno.  They  tried  to  keep  them- 
selves warm  with  fires  in  their  grass  huts,  but  their  chief 
resource  was  to  huddle  together  like  close  packed  cattle 
and  exercise  their  lungs.  They  talked  all  night — gen- 
erally about  us.  You  could  not  wake  at  any  hour  with- 
out hearing  the  "Wazungu"  (Europeans)  getting  theirs 
from  some  impassioned  orator! 

And  often  the  hearty  roars  of  laughter  told  us  that 
the  village  wag  was  not  overlooking  any  little  thing 
they  found  quaint  in  us. 

They  had  no  blankets — nothing  but  the  goat  skins 
and  wisps  of  cloth  they  wore  by  day.  And  one  man 
lost  even  these.  It  was  the  morning  the  guides  left.  He 
came  over  to  us  with  a  wreath  of  greenery  about  his 
waist,  like  a  Russian  dancer  performing  Spring,  and 
amidst  the  hilarious  laughter  of  his  friends  he  delivered 
a  long,  pleading,  and  utterly  unintelligible  discourse. 

120 


MR.  AKELEY  WORKING  ON  GORILLA  SKINS 


[page  120] 


GUIDES  REMOVING  FLESH  FROM  GORILLA  SKELETONS 


[page  120] 


GORILLA  SKELETONS- — AND  OTHERS 


[page  121] 


GORILLA  CAMP — SKELETONS  AND  SKINS  DRYING — LITTLE  CLARENCE 
HANGING  IN  TENT 

[page  121] 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

Being  interpreted,  it  appeared  that  he  had  burned 
his  garment  in  the  fire  that  night  and  was  asking  the 
loan  of  a  dishcloth.  Cloth  was  too  precious  for  gen- 
erosity. We  gave  him  half  a  dishcloth.  He  was  quite 
pleased  and  abandoned  his  wreathing  buttercups  with 
relief. 

We  sent  the  porters  on  ahead  of  us  with  tents  and 
supplies  to  make  camp  in  our  former  location  in  Mikeno 
about  a  thousand  feet  lower  and  much  warmer  than  this 
glade,  and  then  we  scouted  back  over  Karisimbi  where 
we  had  found  the  big  one  the  day  before,  to  try  for 
photographs.  We  tried  for  five  hours  without  a  glimpse 
of  any  living  thing.  Not  even  a  leopard  had  visited  the 
kill.  We  had  seen  leopard's  tracks  near  our  tent,  and 
the  boys  were  in  deadly  terror  of  them  at  night;  but 
they  could  not  be  plentiful  or  they  would  not  have  over- 
looked the  gorilla  meat  which  we  found  lying  just 
where  it  had  been  cut  from  the  skeleton. 

The  natives  did  not  eat  the  meat.  We  ourselves  had 
cooked  and  eaten  a  little,  just  for  the  sake  of  doing  it, 
and  found  it  perfectly  good  meat,  firm  and  sweet,  but 
I  couldn't  get  over  the  family  feeling  of  sampling  grand- 
uncle  Africanus! 

We  came  into  the  Mikeno  camp  that  night  feeling 
thoroughly  exercised,  as  we  had  a  habit  of  saying.  The 
next  day,  my  husband  and  I  started  off  alone  with  the 
idea  of  locating  a  troop  for  a  motion  picture  if  possible, 
and,  if  the  light  should  be  too  gray  for  the  picture,  of 
killing  a  female  for  the  group. 

Having  no  guides  we  took  our  luckless  tent  boys 
and  porters  to  carry  our  guns  and  plate  camera.  For 

121 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

over  three  hours  we  led  them  a  hard  chase  through  the 
nettles  that  burned  like  fire  wherever  they  touched.  At 
every  rest  the  men  scratched  vigorously  and  told  each 
other  in  tones  that  were  perfectly  intelligible,  however 
unknown  the  words,  their  opinion  of  our  excursion. 

There  was  one  frank  and  thorny  nettle  that  could  be 
recognized  and  generally  avoided,  but  there  was  a  soft, 
plushy-looking  plant,  seemingly  as  mild  as  a  nursery 
tea,  that  left  a  wipe  of  almost  invisible  bristles  on  you 
like  a  fairy  shaving  brush,  and  the  touch  of  it  burned 
a  full  hour.  The  only  consolation  in  getting  another 
touch  was  that  you  then  ceased  to  occupy  yourself  with 
the  old  one! 

Finally,  after  some  hours,  we  struck  an  old  antelope 
trail  that  promised  easier  going  and  we  wound  up  and 
down  the  slopes  on  that,  but  found  nothing  but  the 
antelope  marks.  Once  we  came  on  a  small  bush  buck, 
but  he  did  not  stay  to  have  his  picture  taken.  Then  we 
passed  a  gorilla  trail  leading  off  to  the  left,  which  gave 
some  sign  of  promise,  broken  stalks  showing  where  the 
gorillas  had  fed. 

Judgment  told  us  to  follow  that  trail,  but  when  my 
husband  asked  me  which  way  I  wanted  to  go,  I  aban- 
doned judgment  and  clung  to  the  easier  footing  of  the 
antelope  path,  although  it  looked  too  much  used  here 
by  the  natives  who  came  up  from  Burunga's  into  these 
heights  for  wood,  for  chances  of  gorilla.  But  I  voted 
to  keep  on  with  the  antelope  path  until  we  had  found 
a  good  spot  for  lunch  and  rest,  and  so  we  sauntered 
easily  on  and  then — just  to  show  how  luck  and  judg- 
ment differ — we  rounded  a  mountain  slope,  passed 

122 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

around  a  fallen  rock  and  tree  and  looked  down  into  a 
lovely,  open  meadow  where  four  gorillas  were  feeding! 

I  saw  only  three  at  first.  There  was  a  huge  silver- 
backed  male,  slouching  along  with  his  strange  shamble 
among  the  waving  green,  and  two  females,  recognized 
by  their  black  backs,  a  little  distance  behind  him.  Their 
gait  is  extraordinary.  They  walk  on  their  hind  feet, 
assisting  themselves  with  their  hands,  the  fingers 
knuckled  under,  the  thumb  outspread,  and,  as  their  arms 
are  enormously  long,  their  backs  are  but  slightly  bent. 

It  gave  us  a  tremendous  thrill  to  see  those  great  beasts 
there  in  the  glade.  I  felt  a  rush  of  exultation  at  our 
luck.  Three  of  them!  And  one  of  them  the  very  gen- 
tleman we  had  come  so  far  to  interview.  "Now,"  I 
remember  thinking  excitedly,  "now,  we  are  going  to 
know !" 

We  had  frozen  at  attention  the  instant  we  saw  them, 
signaling  the  porters  to  keep  silent  and  out  of  sight; 
but  some  sound  had  already  given  warning  of  our  ap- 
proach. The  big  male  looked  around  straight  up  at  us, 
rising  as  he  did  so. 

It  was  an  uncannily  human  face  that  he  turned  up 
to  us,  but  there  was  none  of  Du  Chaillu's  demon  horror 
about  it.  I  got  an  impression  of  a  wary  interest  that 
did  not  intend  to  tolerate  any  intrusion,  but  there  was 
not  a  flash  of  menace — nothing  that  the  most  prudish 
person  could  possibly  call  hellish.  He  simply  conveyed 
the  idea  that  he  had  been  disturbed  by  a  distinct  out- 
sider, and  started  deliberately  away,  shambling  along 
through  his  ancestral  meadows  towards  an  arch  in  the 
trees  leading  into  glades  ahead. 

123 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

The  two  females  came  after  him,  like  big  shaggy 
black  bears,  except  for  their  peculiar  gait.  None  of 
them  did  any  barking  or  roaring  and  there  was  noth- 
ing to  alarm  the  fourth  gorilla,  which  I  saw  then  for 
the  first  time,  as  she  suddenly  discovered  the  others 
making  off  without  her  and  came  lurching  rapidly 
after  them. 

I  had  already  pulled  out  a  bit  of  paper,  a  chocolate 
wrapping,  from  the  convenient  safari  pockets,  while 
Herbert  thrust  his  pencil  into  my  hands,  and  started  a 
swift  scrawl  to  Mr.  Akeley  telling  him  to  hurry  with 
the  camera  as  we  had  come  up  to  three  gorillas — and 
at  that  moment  I  crossed  out  the  three  and  wrote  four. 

The  note  was  passed  back  to  a  porter  who  was 
ordered  to  go,  pacy,  pacy,  a  short  cut  to  camp  to  bring 
Bwana  Akeley  with  his  camera  here. 

It  was  just  twelve-thirty.  The  sun  was  out  and  the 
light  would  be  good  for  five  hours,  and  if  the  gorillas 
were  not  hurried  or  frightened  there  was  every  chance 
of  coming  up  to  them. 

One  after  another,  not  running,  but  with  quickness 
for  all  their  seeming  clumsiness,  the  four  gorillas  went 
on  under  the  trees,  looking  back  constantly  in  that  ter- 
ribly human  way.  Then  they  disappeared. 

It  was  hard  not  to  keep  after  them.  We  settled  down 
in  a  thicket  that  commanded  a  view  of  the  meadow, 
with  our  boy  Aluma,  who  had  been  carrying  my  gun, 
beside  us,  and  sent  the  men  farther  back  on  the  path. 
While  we  watched  we  saw  two  or  three  of  the  gorillas 
appear  in  the  opening  into  the  glades  beyond  and  cross 
back  and  forth,  apparently  feeding.  We  could  see  them 

124 


IN  THE  GORILLA  FORF.STS  OF  Mr.  MIKENO 


[page  124] 


GOEILLA  BED  AXD  TRAIL 


[page  124] 


GORILLA  BED,  OVERHUNG  BY  FERNS 


[page  128] 


JUST  BEFORE  MEETING  GORILLAS — MRS.  BRADLEY  AND  PORTERS 

[page  128] 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

very  distinctly  against  the  golden  green  of  the  meadow, 
for  the  opening  was  then  flooded  with  sun. 

Poor  Aluma  could  not  understand  our  inaction.  He 
put  his  hand  on  the  gun  on  my  knee  and  tried  to  urge 
me  forward.  He  could  see  no  mortal  reason  in  streak- 
ing through  the  forest  for  hours,  stung  by  nettles  and 
stiff  with  fatigue,  if,  after  you  caught  up  to  your  game, 
you  did  nothing  about  it  but  sit  down  and  look. 

Some  minutes  later  he  caught  my  arm  excitedly, 
whispered,  "Kubwa"  (big  one),  and  pointed  to  the 
woods  in  front  of  us,  not  to  the  left  where  the  others 
had  gone.  We  could  see  nothing  but  the  waving  of 
some  faraway  bushes,  which  might  have  meant  antelope. 
Aluma  insisted  that  he  had  seen  a  big  one,  and  we  were 
whispering  about  that,  in  checkered  English  and  Swa- 
hili,  when  squarely  out  of  the  woods  at  our  right  a 
gorilla  came  in  a  great  hurry  and  streaked  through  the 
bushes  into  the  meadows  beyond,  like  a  half-submerged 
submarine  plowing  through  green  waves. 

All  I  could  see  was  the  great  black  hulk  and  swinging 
arms — the  sunlight  on  the  back  was  deceiving,  but  it 
seemed  to  me  gray.  The  females  are  black  while  the 
males  have  the  distinguishing  silvery  hairs.  After  the 
gorilla  had  disappeared,  we  heard  several  barks,  like 
exaggerated  dog  barks. 

At  any  rate,  there  were  five  gorillas,  six,  if  Aluma 
could  be  trusted,  feeding  there  just  out  of  sight,  and 
we  kept  looking  from  the  forest  to  our  watches  and  mak- 
ing futile  estimates  of  the  porter's  speed,  and  the  time 
of  Mr.  Akeley's  arrival. 

We  sent  Aluma  back  to  the  others  and  Herbert  and 

125 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

I  proceeded  to  lunch  somewhat  sketchily  upon  chocolate 
and  cold  beans.  Once  more  we  saw  the  hlack  dots  cross 
the  opening,  far  ahead  this  time,  and  we  thought  of 
preserving  our  bean  can  for  Mr.  Heinz  as  the  only 
variety  eaten  in  sight  of  a  wild  gorilla. 

After  an  hour,  Herbert  went  back  to  start  another 
runner  on  the  way.  As  I  sat  scooping  up  the  beans  I 
saw  something  begin  to  materialize  on  the  slopes  to  the 
left  and  got  a  glimpse  of  black  coming  down  the  hill 
before  it  disappeared  into  the  welter  of  bushes  below. 
It  might  have  been  one  of  the  former  band  or  it  might 
have  been  a  new  one. 

At  any  rate  I  had  a  strong  conviction  that  the  place 
was  boiling  with  gorillas,  and  I  took  a  cautious  look  to 
see  if  my  Springfield  was  on  Ready  and  not  on  Safe. 
And  then  I  heard  a  noise  at  my  extreme  right. 

It  was  a  very  loud  noise.  It  sounded  just  on  the 
other  side  of  the  thicket. 

The  only  way  I  could  see  at  that  angle  was  to  rise 
and  look  over  the  top.  .  .  .  The  crackling  came 
again.  .  .  .  Something  was  coming.  ...  I  hastily  re- 
called that  little  bit  about  gorilla  hunting  which  told 
that  the  gorilla  invariably  paused  in  its  advance  to 
beat  its  breast  and  roar,  and  the  hunter  was  advised  to 
hold  his  fire  until  a  desirable  nearness  had  been  ob- 
tained. 

The  question  at  the  moment  was  what  constituted 
a  desirable  nearness.  The  stealthy,  twig-snapping 
sounded  quite  near  enough,  although  there  had  been  no 
preamble  of  warning  roars.  And  the  reach  of  the 
gorilla's  arms  was  considerably  longer  than  my  own. 

126 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

I  had  a  sudden  vision  of  that  arm  of  the  big  bull  of 
Karisimbi  .  .  .  and  I  remembered  another  little  bit 
about  the  derisive  way  the  gorilla  was  said  to  have  of 
snatching  away  your  weapon  and  snapping  the  barrel 
just  for  exhibition  purposes,  before  dealing  its  death- 
blows. 

I  did  all  this  remembering  in  about  an  instant  of 
time,  while  I  was  rising  out  of  the  thicket,  my  gun 
pointed.  In  that  instant  I  got  the  keenest  thrills  of 
gorilla  hunting  that  I  experienced. 

I  looked  out,  expecting  to  see  something  big  and 
black.  ...  A  sort  of  partridge  whirred  up.  .  .  . 

I  sat  down  and  finished  the  beans  in  my  reaction,  and 
when  Herbert  came  back  there  were  no  beans  but 
merely  an  episode. 

At  two-thirty  Mr.  Akeley  arrived  with  Miss  Miller 
and  the  camera,  accompanied  by  the  guides  who  had 
been  sent  back  by  their  sultan  in  great  displeasure  at 
their  having  abandoned  the  white  man  before  he  was 
through  with  his  work.  Good  old  Burunga!  Mr. 
Akeley  certainly  endowed  him  for  life  with  backsheesh. 
We  wondered  how  much  of  it  the  guides  themselves 
ever  got. 

We  had  heard  the  gorillas  an  hour  before  the  guides 
arrived  and  I  had  seen  that  lone  one  within  the  hour,  so 
we  knew  we  were  not  far  behind  them,  and  we  started 
out  with  high  hopes.  But  we  reckoned  without  the 
guides.  They  did  not  start  along  the  trail.  Instead, 
as  they  knew  the  country,  they  skirted  the  high  edges 
and  half  an  hour  later  cut  down  into  the  woods  at  a 
place  where  they  hoped  the  gorillas  would  be — but  the 

127 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

gorillas  had  been  traveling.  The  guides  struck  the 
trail  in  the  meadow  and,  instead  of  going  on,  followed 
it  back  to  the  very  place  where  we  had  first  seen  them. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  determine  which  way  a  gorilla 
is  going,  for  the  dense  vegetation  shows  no  marks  of 
hands  and  feet,  and  you  are  chiefly  guided  by  the  swath 
that  his  great  body  makes  in  the  bushes  and  the  broken 
stalks  of  the  plants  he  has  been  feeding  upon. 

It  was  then  three-thirty  and  we  had  lost  an  hour. 
Aluma,  who  had  been  yearning  to  distinguish  himself 
by  guiding,  was  nearly  weeping  with  rage,  and  I  sym- 
pathized with  his  more  direct  methods.  Now  we  fol- 
lowed the  trail  forward  and  wandered  on  and  on,  up 
and  down,  circling  great  clumps  of  trees,  and  winding 
in  and  out  of  dense  shrubbery. 

There  were  fresh  marks  on  the  trail,  also  other,  and 
older,  ones.  We  passed  many  gorilla  beds,  some  old, 
some  recent.  The  gorilla  makes  a  very  simple  sort  of 
nest  for  sleeping — a  scratched-together,  temporary 
affair,  which  he  is  under  no  pains  to  keep  clean.  There 
was  no  skill  shown  in  the  construction  of  the  nest;  very 
often,  but  not  necessarily,  it  took  advantage  of  some 
hollow  at  the  base  of  a  tree. 

The  trail  we  were  following  became  more  and  more 
strenuous.  The  gorillas  showed  supreme  disregard  for 
impediments;  they  had  an  underground  way  of  sliding 
through  tangled  tree  roots  or  tunneling  under  branches 
that  was  distinctly  hard  on  our  hands  and  knees,  but 
the  excitement  of  the  chase  sustained  us,  and  we  stooped 
and  slid  and  tunneled  as  fast  as  we  could. 

As  hope  waned,  our  criticism  of  the  gorilla's  wander- 

128 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

ing  and  inconclusive  habits  deepened  bitterly.  He  was 
unstable,  erratic,  and  capricious!  If  he  wanted  to  get 
anywhere  why  on  earth  didn't  he  go  there,  instead  of 
rambling  and  whip  sawing  all  over  a  mountainside! 

Along  the  way  we  kept  seeing  single  trails  branching 
off  as  one  after  another  of  the  band  abandoned  the 
main  trail,  but  the  guides  were  not  to  be  diverted,  not 
even  when  we  passed  a  muddy  way,  where  the  print  of 
recent  knuckles  and  feet  were  clearly  shown.  It  was 
the  first  print  of  a  gorilla  I  had  seen  since  the  day 
Herbert  and  I  had  followed  the  mud  chute  up  the  Mis- 
sion forests.  Here  in  the  highlands  there  were  no  other 
paths  where  the  earth  showed  through  the  greenery  to 
reveal  a  mark. 

We  were  rather  inclined  to  this  clearly  defined  spoor, 
but  the  guides  held  to  the  main  thoroughfare  and  by 
and  by  I  began  to  understand  the  reason  why,  for  along 
the  way  they  visited  their  native  snares — a  bent  pole 
with  a  loop  for  unwary  antelope.  I  was  nearly  caught 
in  one  of  them  myself,  but  otherwise  there  were  none  of 
them  sprung. 

The  fact  that  the  natives  came  up  to  these  forests  for 
wood  and  for  these  snares  armed  only  with  their  spears 
showed  that  they  were  not  in  great  fear  of  being  at- 
tacked by  the  gorillas.  I  heard  of  only  one  case  of  a 
gorilla  attacking  a  native  here.  That  was  of  a  wood- 
cutter who  was  working  obliviously  when  a  gorilla 
sprang  out  and  bit  him  furiously  in  the  leg,  then  flung 
away  again,  without  further  attack.  The  man,  for- 
tunately, was  too  terrified  to  make  any  attempt  to  de- 
fend himself.  He  afterwards  recovered,  and  the 

129 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

incident  certainly  did  not  prevent  his  fellows  from 
coming  as  freely  as  before  into  the  woods — any  more 
than  a  seizure  by  crocodiles  keeps  the  blacks  out  of  the 
rivers. 

The  sky  was  growing  darker,  with  swift  gusts  of 
rain.  The  hope  of  a  picture  was  gone  and  the  guides 
were  now  hurrying  along  a  path  that  clearly  led  to  the 
camp. 

It  was  very  thoughtful  of  the  gorillas.  We  could 
see  no  signs  of  their  travel  on  that  way,  but  the  guides 
insisted  that  they  had  followed  the  trail  persistently, 
only  just  in  front  of  the  camp  the  gorillas  had  left  the 
trail  and  gone  down  a  precipitous  cliff  across  to  the 
opposite  mountain. 

Perhaps  they  had.  At  any  rate  the  picture  hunt  was 
over.  It  had  been  a  vain  chase  for  Mr.  Akeley  and 
Miss  Miller  who  had  not  had  the  sustaining  excitement 
of  seeing  the  band  in  the  first  place.  But  if  the  gorillas 
were  aloof,  the  exercise,  Martha  assured  us  gayly,  had 
been  unlimited.  Martha  had  a  pluck  and  cheer  that 
no  climb  or  climate  daunted. 

The  loss  of  the  picture  chance  was  not  as  disappoint- 
ing as  it  would  have  been  if  Mr.  Akeley  had  not  already 
realized  the  dream  with  which  he  had  brought  his  camera 
up  to  the  mountains,  for  he  had  secured  some  hundreds 
of  feet  of  motion  picture  film  of  wild  gorillas — the 
first  motion  pictures  of  savage  gorillas  ever  taken.  He 
wanted  to  supplement  this  with  more  gorilla  film  and 
on  another  day,  with  Mr.  Bradley,  he  came  on  a  band, 
with  some  big  males,  that  he  was  able  to  photograph. 

To  Herbert  and  myself  it  had  been  a  wonderful  day. 

130 


THE  PEAK  OF  MT.  MTKENO,  14,600  FEET 


[page  130] 


PORTERS'  HUTS  AT  THE  GORILLA  CAMP 


[page  130] 


A  GLADE  IN  THE  BAMBOOS 

[page  131] 


NATIVE  CATTLE  ix  THE  FOOTHILLS  OF  MIKENO 


[page  131] 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

I  had  seen  six  gorillas,  one  of  them,  at  least,  and  prob- 
ably two,  the  demon  male,  and  five  gorillas  had  cer- 
tainly seen  us.  And  we  had  not  been  attacked  on  sight. 
Not  one  had  beat  his  breast  or  roared  or  tried  to  ambush 
us!  That  is  our  evidence,  as  far  as  it  goes.  When 
wounded  or  cornered  the  gorilla  would  be  as  terrible 
an  antagonist  as  a  giant  of  such  strength  and  intelli- 
gence would  naturally  be,  but  we  had  no  reason  in  the 
world  to  believe  that  the  gorilla  hunts  man,  or  attacks 
him  unprovoked,  or  carries  off  women  as  in  the  good 
old  story  book  tales. 

Here  in  the  mountains  the  natives  were  constantly 
going  up  into  the  forests  frequented  by  the  gorillas  and 
yet  I  heard  only  one  story  of  attack — that  of  the  wood- 
cutter in  the  bamboos — and  that  might  have  been  some 
youthful  gorilla's  idea  of  a  prank,  or  the  ape  might 
have  been  taken  by  surprise  and  believed  himself  at- 
tacked. We  never  heard  of  any  of  the  native  shambas 
being  raided  by  the  gorillas,  for  here  the  gorilla  food — 
the  wild  carrot  and  parsley  and  fresh  succulent  green 
growth  of  the  high  lands — was  extraordinarily  plenti- 
ful, and,  below  the  upper  forest,  were  the  bamboos 
whose  fresh  green  tips  were  always  in  season.  The 
gorilla  is  a  strict  vegetarian  like  the  elephant  and 
buffalo — three  of  the  four  most  dangerous  animals  of 
Africa.  It  behooves  one  to  walk  softly  with  vege- 
tarians ! 

Altogether  Mr.  Akeley's  belief  in  the  essential  char- 
acter of  the  gorilla  was  justified.  He  was  simply 
the  big  monkey,  the  man  ape,  powerful  beyond  all 

131 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

words,  dangerous  when  attacked,  but  not  a  bit  the 
hellish  demon  or  the  malignant  arch  fiend! 

There  is  no  excuse  for  keeping  the  gorilla  on  the 
game  lists.  He  is  too  valuable  and  too  rare  to  be  ex- 
terminated. He  ought  to  have  his  own  preserves  and 
official  protection  on  his  mountain  heights  and  if  he 
doesn't  have  them,  and  that  soon,  he  will  go  the  way 
that  so  many  great  beasts  have  gone — the  way  that 
all  are  going  fast  now  in  Africa.  We  estimated  that 
not  more  than  seventy-five  or  a  hundred  of  the  gorillas 
exist  in  those  mountains.  Though  our  licenses  gave  us 
ten  gorillas,  we  killed  only  the  five  necessary  for  the 
Museum  group. 

It  is  extraordinary  that  the  gorillas  are  not  more 
numerous  in  this  area  for,  until  the  last  years  brought 
the  hunters  I  have  mentioned,  the  great  apes  were  en- 
tirely unmolested.  They  breed  undisturbed,  but  evi- 
dently they  do  not  breed  very  fast — or  else  some  un- 
known cause  of  mortality  keeps  the  numbers  down. 
That  can  hardly  be  credited,  for  there  was  not  a  hint  of 
disease  in  any  gorilla  dissected;  nor  was  a  solitary 
parasite  found  in  any  gorilla,  nor  yet  on  a  gorilla.  Their 
hair  was  as  soft  and  pure  and  free  from  insects  as  a 
freshly  tubbed  pet  kitten.  It  is  all  the  more  astonish- 
ing when  you  think  of  the  literal  millions  of  ticks  that 
are  on  lions  and  elephants  and  buffaloes  and  rhinos,  and 
apparently  every  other  jungle  creature.  Famine  seems 
as  much  out  of  the  question  as  disease,  for  if  the  food  of 
these  upland  meadows  failed,  the  gorilla  had  only  to 
descend  to  the  bamboo  forests  below  where  he  would 
find  plenty  of  fresh  shoots.  The  fact  that  the  gorilla 

132 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

had  never  gone  down  to  the  native  shambas  showed  that 
food  had  not  been  a  problem.  Lacking  any  other  fac- 
tors in  the  situation,  it  must  simply  be  that  the  rate  of 
increase  is  extremely  slow.  As  far  as  is  known  the 
births  are  always  single.  The  mother  that  Mr.  Akeley 
photographed  had  two  little  ones  with  her  of  much  the 
same  size  and  from  that  one  might  conjecture  them  to 
be  twins,  but  it  would  be  sheer  conjecture — no  record 
of  gorilla  twins  is  known. 

Their  longevity  is  said  to  be  greater  than  that  of  man. 
Mr.  Barns  thought  that  his  male  gorilla  had  lived  a 
hundred  years,  but  he  was  frankly  voicing  a  possibility. 
Mr.  Akeley  was  inclined  to  think  that  the  age  limit  was 
more  nearly  that  of  man.  This  question  would  be  one 
of  the  interesting  things  that  could  be  determined  by 
an  experiment  station  of  naturalists  in  gorilla  land. 

The  organization  seems  to  be  the  band  rather  than 
the  family;  our  experience  that  noon  and,  later,  the 
experience  of  Mr.  Akeley  and  Mr.  Bradley  with  a  large 
band  on  the  slopes  of  Mikeno,  showed  that  the  group 
might  consist  of  two  or  more  males  with  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  females.  The  question  arises  whether  those 
bands  consisted  of  two  or  more  respectable  monogamous 
couples  and  their  marriageable  daughters — maiden 
gorillas  yet  unculled  by  roving  gallants — or  whether  it 
consisted  of  a  couple  of  gorilla  gentlemen  and  their  re- 
spective harems  or  of  unassorted  and  liberally  inclined 
ladies  and  gentlemen.  .  .  .  We  can  only  offer  the 
situation,  not  the  solution. 

The  gorilla  sleeps  on  beds  and  not  in  trees  as  do  the 
chimpanzees  in  bamboos,  and  whether  they  use  the 

133 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

trees  at  all,  except  to  climb  up  a  slanting  trunk  to  a 
crotch,  is  a  question  which  our  evidence  would  have  to 
answer  in  the  negative.  Mr.  Akeley  saw  gorillas  in 
the  crotches  of  trees  and  so  did  the  Pere  Van  Hoef ,  but 
that  simply  means  that  the  great  apes  had  climbed  up 
to  a  comfortable  perch  as  a  youngster  climbs.  It  would 
be  impossible  for  them  to  swing  through  the  trees  like 
their  monkey  kin,  for  the  enormous  weight  of  the 
beasts  makes  that  legend  untenable.  Very  few  branches 
could  support  from  three  to  four  hundred  pounds! 

The  tremendous  strength  of  the  gorilla  is  a  mystery. 
Where  does  he  get  it  and  why  does  he  have  it?  Not  in 
a  necessary  circumstance  of  his  life  does  he  use  it  now. 
Those  great  shoulders  and  bulging  arm  muscles  that 
could  crush  a  lion  have  no  more  arduous  work  than 
breaking  off  wild  parsley  and  scratching  together 
branches  for  a  nest. 

The  morning  after  our  experience  with  the  band,  Mr. 
Akeley  and  Mr.  Bradley  planned  to  go  back  after  pic- 
tures and  ran  onto  a  band  on  the  slopes  of  Mikeno 
while  Martha  Miller  and  I  went  down  the  mountain  to 
rejoin  Alice  and  Priscilla  Hall.  We  made  the  descent 
in  five  and  a  half  hours,  with  a  constantly  increasing 
wonder  at  ourselves  that  we  ever  made  the  ascent  at  all. 

Out  from  the  Mission  an  excited  little  girl  with  flying 
curls  came  racing  to  meet  us  and  Priscilla  had  cooling 
lime  juice  ready  for  us,  then  a  midday  meal  that  was 
the  height  of  luxury — roast  chicken  and  green  corn 
from  Burunga,  and  Cape  gooseberries,  strawberries 
and  bananas  from  the  Fathers'  gardens ;  then  came  hot 
baths  and  clean  clothes,  and  another  dinner  that  night 

134. 


A  GORILLA  BAND 

at  the  hospitable  Fathers'.  Lastly  we  slept  in  our  white- 
washed room  with  thatched  roofs  and  mud  floors  with 
a  sense  of  comfortable  homecoming. 

We  had  attained  our  objective — that  high  triangle 
which  we  had  believed  covered  with  bamboos  and  which 
proved  such  an  enchanted  forest — and  we  should  al- 
ways carry  with  us  a  picture  of  the  wonderland  of  those 
hidden  heights,  the  great,  cloud-wrapped  forests  and 
their  giant  denizens. 

It  had  been  worth  it  all;  the  heart-breaking  climb, 
the  cold,  the  discomforts  were  merely  incidents,  a  price 
one  paid  gladly — especially  in  retrospect ! — for  the  rare 
experience  of  seeing  gorillas  in  their  savage  solitudes. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PYGMIES  COME  TO  CAMP 
THANKSGIVING  WITH  THE  WHITE  FATHERS 

THE  Batwa  were  coming.  The  Pygmies,  the  fugitive 
little  forest  dwellers,  were  coming  to  our  camp. 

A  hasty  message  from  the  White  Fathers  brought 
the  word,  and  I  was  so  afraid  that  they  would  change 
their  fugitive  little  forest  minds  that  I  seized  Alice,  our 
star  attraction  with  the  natives,  and  with  Martha  and 
Priscilla  hurried  to  meet  them. 

Ever  since  we  had  reached  Lulenga,  before  we  went 
up  the  mountains  after  gorillas,  we  had  been  trying 
through  the  kindly  offices  of  the  White  Fathers  to  get 
the  Batwa  to  come  in.  They  are  the  forest  dwarfs,  the 
descendants,  in  all  probability,  of  those  little  bushmen 
who  succeeded  the  kin  of  the  Neanderthal  giants,  and 
who,  a  hundred  thousand  years  ago,  while  Europe  lay 
under  glacial  ice,  were  covering  the  rocks  of  Africa 
with  their  delicate  paintings  and  drawings. 

They  were  nomads,  shy,  suspicious,  often  at  war  with 
the  blacks.  Later,  in  Uganda,  we  found  that  the  Pygmy 
raids  from  the  forest  had  wiped  out  the  population  of 
the  southern  shores  of  Lake  Bunyoni,  and  though  the 
British  had  conducted  a  punitive  expedition  against 
the  Batwa,  the  natives  did  not  settle  there  again.  But 
here  the  relation  between  the  dwarfs  and  the  Banya- 

136 


THE  PYGMIES  COME  TO  CAMP 

ruanda,  the  inhabitants  of  this  region,  was  friendly, 
even  to  intermarriage,  and  the  White  Fathers  had 
induced  the  chief  to  send  into  the  forest  for  the  Batwa, 
with  a  promise  of  salt  from  us  for  each  one  that  would 
come  in. 

Mr.  Akeley  and  Mr.  Bradley  were  still  on  Mikeno, 
planning  to  reach  camp  by  noon,  for  it  was  Thanksgiv- 
ing Day,  and  as  we  hurried  along  towards  the  Mission 
we  felt  an  anxious  pang  for  fear  the  retiring  Batwa 
would  not  stay  to  meet  the  men  and  be  recorded  in  the 
motion  pictures. 

We  might  have  spared  that  pang.  Ahead  of  us  we 
saw  coming,  not  the  shy  two  or  three,  advancing  cau- 
tiously from  bush  to  bush  as  our  fancy  had  pictured, 
but  an  actual  procession  pouring  along  like  a  pilgrim- 
age, clapping  and  singing  and  followed  by  a  mob  of 
curious  natives. 

Martha  and  I  exchanged  bewilderment.  Were  these 
our  shrinking  Batwa?  ...  It  could  not  be. 

It  was  the  Batwa.  Men,  women,  and  children,  the 
tribe  of  them  was  making  holiday  to  see  the  strange 
white  women  and  the  child  with  the  long,  fair  curls — 
and  to  receive  the  promised  salt.  Short,  stocky  little 
dwarfs  they  were,  with  round  heads  which  had  the  effect 
of  being  driven  too  deeply  between  their  shoulders,  clad 
simply  in  leather  aprons,  the  women  supplementing  the 
aprons  with  copper  wire  anklets  and  a  head  wreath  of 
flowers,  the  men  carrying  bows  and  arrows.  The  chik 
dren  were  unencumbered. 

Not  that  that  was  any  distinction.  No  little  African 
has  to  be  careful  of  his  clothes. 

137 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

They  poured  into  the  cleared  space  before  us  and 
ringed  Alice  in,  chattering  their  monkeylike  clicks  and 
grunts,  and  then  they  danced.  They  danced  like  mad 
for  three  hours.  We  tried  to  get  them  to  wait  till  the 
Bwanas  had  come  down  the  mountain,  but  no,  the  spirit 
was  on  them,  and  they  clapped  and  sang  and  jazzed  in 
oblivious  excitement,  while  all  the  natives  in  the  vicinity 
gathered  and  clapped  with  them,  and  in  that  pandemo- 
nium we  finished  breakfast  and  the  preparation  for 
Thanksgiving  dinner. 

When  the  men  finally  appeared,  our  Batwa  had 
exhausted  their  first  fine  frenzy.  For  the  sake  of  the 
salt,  of  which  they  are  inordinately  fond,  they  repeated 
the  dance,  but  it  was  a,  much  less  spirited  affair. 

These  were  the  Batwa  of  the  forests  of  the  volcanoes. 
The  name  Batwa  —  Mutwa  in  the  singular  —  means 
simply  "Little  Men."  We  had  heard  of  three  Batwa 
peoples  in  the  Eastern  Congo,  the  tribes  in  the  Ruwen- 
zori  forests,  a  tribe  upon  the  Island  of  Kwijwi,  the 
largest  island  on  Lake  Kivu,  and  these  of  the  Eastern 
forests.  The  Kwijwi  and  Ruwenzori  Batwa  are  identi- 
cal with  the  true  Pygmies,  from  which  all  the  Batwa  are 
generally  held  to  be  descended;  these  of  the  M'fumbiro 
region  present  the  dwarfish  characteristics — the  rounded 
head,  the  big  eyes,  the  broad-rooted  nose — but  inter- 
marriage with  the  friendly  Banyaruanda,  the  neighbor- 
ing tribe,  has  undoubtedly  modified  the  stock,  especially 
in  the  matter  of  height. 

The  Duke  of  Mecklenburg  reported  that  he  found 
these  Batwa  much  taller  than  he  expected,  some  were 
four  feet  seven,  some  even  four  feet  eleven.  We  found 

138 


THE  PYGMIES  COME  TO  CAMP 

some  men  about  that  height — and  in  one  case  we  found 
that  there  had  been  intermarriage  in  that  family  with  the 
family  of  a  negro  chief — but  other  men  were  barely  over 
four  feet  high,  and  the  women,  who  were  the  ugliest 
creatures  that  I  saw  in  Africa,  were  smaller,  squat,  and 
thick.  We  did  not  try  to  measure  them  for  fear  of 
intimidating  them,  but  we  had  Alice  stand  by  them,  and 
measured  the  difference.  Alice's  height  was  three  feet 
eight  inches  and  there  were  women  with  children  on  their 
backs  who  were  no  taller  and  two  much  shorter.  Their 
color  was  black,  warm-toned,  and  many  of  the  men 
seemed  hairier  than  the  negroes. 

Their  origin  and  history  are  part  of  the  mystery  of 
Africa.  They  say  of  themselves  that  they  were  "always 
here,"  the  oldest  inhabitants  of  the  region.  It  has  been 
considered  a  sign  of  the  comparatively  recent  origin  of 
the  Bantu  tribes  that  they  live  upon  imported  grains, 
while  the  forest  dwarfs  subsist  on  native  fare.  When 
there  is  a  famine,  as  there  was  after  the  Great  War,  the 
Negro  tribes  die  in  millions,  but  the  Batwa  with  their 
spears  and  bows  and  poisoned  arrows  rove  the  jungles 
and  find  food.  They  eat  birds,  rodents,  and  small  game ; 
ants  and  caterpillars  are  not  disdained;  and  nuts  and 
berries  and  the  roots  of  ordinary  trees  are  helpful.  Dr. 
Van  den  Bergh,  a  White  Father  of  Uganda  who  jour- 
neyed to  the  Congo  forests  west  of  Albert  Nyanza, 
stated  that  there  they  ate  only  the  meat  which  the  forest 
supplied  and  which  was  killed  by  themselves,  or  at  the 
killing  of  which  they  had  assisted,  or  at  least  had  shared 
in  the  tracking,  but  this  is  not  true  of  the  Batwa  of 
South  Africa.  There,  General  Smuts  told  me,  the  little 

139 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

men  live  often  upon  carrion,  and  one  would  lie  out  in 
the  bush  for  hours,  his  unwinking  eyes  fixed  upon  the 
vultures  high  overhead,  invisible  to  other  eyes  less  keen ; 
and  when  the  vultures  sighted  a  djdng  animal  or  a  lion's 
kill,  and  began  sailing  towards  it,  the  bushman  would 
jump  up  and  run  to  it,  and  after  the  lions  and  jackals 
had  feasted  would  creep  in  and  pick  the  bones. 

A  man  known  to  General  Smuts  had  put  out  a  carrion 
bait  and  lain  in  wait,  and  so  had  succeeded  in  capturing 
two  Pygmy  children.  He  kept  them  six  months,  but  in 
spite  of  all  he  could  do,  they  pined  and  sickened  and, 
for  fear  that  they  would  die,  he  let  them  go. 

The  Batwa  were  all  nomads,  ranging  their  forests, 
building  temporary  huts  of  twigs  and  branches,  and 
seldom  staying  in  them  longer  than  two  weeks.  They 
cultivated  no  fields,  no  shambas ;  they  traded  a  little  with 
the  natives,  usually  for  tobacco.  Like  all  the  natives 
of  the  region  the  men  carried  black  clay  pipes  with 
wooden  stems;  these  pipes  were  very  finely  made  with 
something  of  the  style  and  finish  of  the  old  Dutch  ones. 
They  obtained  most  of  these  pipes  from  a  native  of  the 
vicinity  who  made  them,  but  the  Batwa  East  of  Kivu 
did  make  unglazed  pottery  of  their  own,  either  black  or 
red,  of  which  we  had  obtained  some  samples  through 
the  administrators  we  had  met. 

Far  from  being  excruciatingly  shy  they  became  so 
interested  in  us  and  our  domestic  details  that  they  were 
underfoot  like  inquisitive  kittens,  and  Herbert  hastened 
to  present  them  with  the  promised  salt.  We  gave  each 
one  a  good  tablespoonful  and  a  bowlful  to  the  chief. 
The  chief  showed  a  strong  sense  of  honesty,  for  he 

140 


Photograph  by  Ptre  Provoost 

BATWA  CHIEF  AND  WIFE 

[page  140] 


DAKCE  OF  THE  BATWA 


[page  140] 


CROSSING  THE  LAVA  PLAINS 


[page  150] 


A  NIGHT  ON  THE  SUMMIT 


[page  150] 


THE  PYGMIES  COME  TO  CAMP 

brought  back  three  women  who  had  not  danced  for  us 
and  made  them  give  up  their  salt.  We  then  presented 
salt  to  the  native  chief  who  had  induced  them  to  come 
in,  and  shook  hands  ceremoniously  with  all  the  chiefs 
we  were  sure  of,  and  several  who  seemed  to  be  sure  of 
themselves,  and  wished  them  all  "Kwaheri."  Then,  rest 
in  camp  being  merely  change  of  occupation,  the  porters 
were  lined  up  and  paid  off,  with  all  the  promised  back- 
sheesh.  And  then  we  had  a  real  dance. 

The  porters  started  down  the  slope,  turned  suddenly, 
with  a  shout  of  song  that  rose  and  fell  like  hammer- 
strokes,  and  came  up  the  hill  to  us,  their  four  headmen 
in  the  lead.  I  never  saw  men  dance  as  those  men  danced. 
All  their  joy  at  release,  their  triumph  of  danger  over- 
come, their  exultation  at  fortunes  made  and  the  wives 
to  buy,  was  in  that  leaping,  stamping  orgy.  Four  times 
they  surged  up  to  us  and  four  times  receded,  a  marvel  of 
wild  and  savage  motion. 

Thanksgiving  dinner  was  on  the  porch  of  the  mud 
house.  It  was  a  day  like  June,  with  only  a  sprinkle  of 
rain — Thanksgiving  with  roses  blooming  and  volcanoes 
glowing.  Thanksgiving  with  chicken  instead  of  turkey, 
and  strawberries  and  Cape  gooseberries  from  the  Mis- 
sion instead  of  cranberries,  with  green  corn  from  Burun- 
ga's  shambas,  and  plum  pudding  instead  of  pumpkin 
pie — plum  pudding  with  a  sauce  that  does  not  exist  now 
within  the  three-mile  limit,  creamy  and  buttery  and 
fragrant ! 

We  had  two  dinners,  the  family  affair  at  two  o'clock, 
and  another  at  seven  to  which  we  invited  the  White 
Fathers.  Think  of  saying  tranquilly  to  your  cook, 

141 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

"Two  dinners  to-day — the  first  for  six  people,  and  the 
second  for  ten,  and  six  courses  to  each  dinner!" 

It  did  seem  to  us  a  fairly  full  day  for  the  kitchen,  but 
we  did  not  know  our  cook. 

A  six-course  dinner — soup,  chicken,  potatoes,  aspara- 
gus and  corn,  salad,  pudding,  cheese,  crackers,  coffee, 
nuts,  and  candy  .  .  .  and  four  guests.  .  .  .  Only  six 
courses.  Well,  he  was  a  Congo  cook.  He  had  served 
the  chef  de  poste  at  Kissenyi,  and  he  would  save  us  from 
ourselves  and  our  shame  if  it  could  be  done. 

Heaven  knows  how  he  gathered  the  oddments  of  ham 
and  flour  and  lard  and  unreliable  eggs — if  I  had  known 
his  intentions  I  would  have  given  him  the  keys  and  let 
him  do  his  best  and  not  his  worst — but  out  of  his  clan- 
destine this  and  that  and  what-not,  he  supplemented 
those  six  courses  with  six  others  of  his  own  and  served  a 
meal  that  satisfied  his  ideas  of  state. 

He  gave  us  croquettes  of  the  beef  of  yesteryear,  and 
vegetables  matriculated  from  the  soup;  he  gave  us  pie 
of  cooking  fat  and  discarded  citrons  with  a  meringe  of 
hoarded  eggs!  He  alternated  his  courses  with  the 
courses  of  our  selection,  but  not  in  order,  so  that  the 
green  corn  came  after  the  dessert,  but  it  all  came,  course 
after  course,  each  with  the  complete  change  of  plates 
and  knives  and  forks,  and  a  harrowing  wait  for  the 
washing  of  those  plates  and  knives  and  forks. 

Night  deepened,  stars  brightened,  volcanoes  glowed 
redder  and  redder.  Candles  spluttered  and  burned  out 
and  were  replenished.  Conversation,  our  French  con- 
versation, spluttered,  too,  in  those  awful  waits,  then 
revived  in  gales  of  laughter. 

142 


THE  PYGMIES  COME  TO  CAMP 

And  still  the  boys  came,  serving  and  serving.  .  .  . 

And  one  of  them  served,  in  honor  of  the  occasion,  in 
the  union  suit  that  Mr.  Akeley  had  given  him  on  the 
gorilla  mountains  to  supplement  his  shirt  and  khaki 
shorts.  Then  he  had  worn  it  invisibly,  as  custom  pre- 
scribes for  union  suits,  but  in  these  warmer  regions  Leo 
did  not  need  so  much  clothing  and  discarded  the  shirt 
and  trousers  for  the  newest  thing.  Anything  quainter 
than  that  sketchily  buttoned  union  suit  passing  the  pota- 
toes I  have  never  beheld.  Never,  when  buying  the 
garment  in  New  York,  had  Mr.  Akeley  contemplated 
its  appearance  behind  his  dining-room  chair! 

The  other  boy,  Mablanga,  had  gone  to  the  other 
extreme.  He  had  trousers,  a  coat  but  no  shirt,  and  he 
pinned  his  coat  scrupulously  across  and  wound  about 
his  neck  a  woolen  muffler. 

Merrick,  the  wash  boy,  aided  the  festivities  prettily 
attired  in  pink  pajamas  donated  by  Miss  Miller. 

And  then  Aluma,  an  unpopular  young  tent  boy,  the 
one  with  us  during  the  gorilla  hunt  who  shirked  so  badly 
that  he  was  in  disfavor  even  with  our  easy-going  lot, 
suddenly  appeared  on  the  edge  of  the  outer  darkness  and 
in  a  horridly  exaggerated  croak  from  mountain  colds, 
like  that  of  a  dying  frog,  insisted  upon  enumerating  the 
sorrows  of  his  life  to  our  guests  who  spoke  his  language. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  whining  recital  they  waved 
him  majestically  away  and  all  the  translation  their 
politeness  gave  us  was  that  he  was  dissatisfied  with  the 
climate  and  the  gorillas  and  that  the  other  boys  made 
war  on  him. 

He  deserved  war  and  we  sent  him  back  to  Kissenyi 

143 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

next  day.  Discharge  is  simple  in  the  Congo.  You 
reckon  the  time  it  will  take  the  boy  to  walk  back  to  the 
place  you  brought  him  from  and  give  him  thirty  cents 
for  each  week  of  the  way.  If  a  boat  or  train  is  to  be 
had,  you  give  him  the  native  fare. 

Our  Thanksgiving  evening  concluded  finally  with 
games  and  gayety — and  then  from  midnight  to  morning 
we  devoted  ourselves  to  packing  and  to  the  arrange- 
ments for  another  expedition  on  which  we  planned  to 
start  the  next  day. 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 

THE  ASCENSION  OF  MOUNT  NYAMLAGIRA, 
AFRICA'S  MOST  ACTIVE  VOLCANO 

FOR  weeks  there  had  been  the  glare  of  volcanoes  on 
our  horizon.  We  were  in  the  most  active  volcanic  region 
in  Africa,  the  scene  of  the  most  recent  upheavals.  Here, 
north  of  Kivu,  the  great  Central  African  Rift  Valley, 
which  stretches  between  the  mountain  walls  from  the 
southern  end  of  Lake  Tanganyika  over  Lakes  Kivu  and 
Albert  Edward  to  Albert  Nyanza,  had  been  dammed  at 
some  not  distant — geologically  speaking — date  by  the 
bursting  up  of  the  M'fumbiro  group  of  volcanoes,  and 
the  waters  of  Kivu  were  thus  cut  off  from  the  Nile 
basin,  and  raised  to  the  remarkable  height  of  nearly  five 
thousand  feet. 

The  eight  great  volcanoes  fall  into  three  groups: 
Sabinio,  Mgahinga,  and  Muhavura  stretch  east,  one 
behind  the  other;  Mikeno,  Karisimbi,  and  Visoke,  our 
old  gorilla  friends,  form  a  central  triangle;  and,  on  the 
western  side  of  the  valley  rise  the  separate  slopes  of 
Chaninagongo  and  Nyamlagira,  the  only  ones  that  are 
now  active.  All  the  others  have  been  so  long  extinct 
that  the  natives  have  no  knowledge  of  them  as  fire  moun- 
tains except  Muhavura.  There  the  natives  refer  to  an 
eruptive  flue  upon  the  mountainside  as  "Kabiranjuma" 
(the  Last  Boiler). 

145 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

From  the  lava  flooded  floor  of  the  Rift  Valley,  south 
and  east  of  Nyamlagira,  rise  innumerable  little  cones, 
many  of  which  have  been  active  or  come  into  being 
within  very  recent  years,  some  as  late  as  1912,  quiet  now, 
their  rocky  sides  beginning  to  green  with  lichen.  Chani- 
nagongo  and  Nyamlagira  were  the  only  guardians  of 
the  restless  fire  and  over  their  flattened  crater  tops  the 
clouds  of  steam  hung  rosy  tinted. 

Chaninagongo  smoked  but  slightly,  but  from  Nyam- 
lagira went  up  a  cloud  of  steam  by  day,  and  by  night  a 
crimson  blaze  seen  a  hundred  miles  away.  It  was  the 
most  active  volcano  in  Africa,  probably  in  the  known 
world,  and  no  one  had  ever  made  the  ascent  since  the 
last  outbreak  of  fire. 

In  1904  it  had  begun  to  be  active;  in  1905  Wollaston 
reported  a  jet  of  steam  escaping  from  the  southern 
slopes;  in  1907  Kirschstein  of  Mecklenburg's  expedition 
witnessed  eruptions  and  made  the  ascent  to  the  crater. 
For  some  time  then  it  smoked  heavily,  as  far  as  we  could 
learn;  Monsieur  Van  de  Ghiniste,  the  Belgian  Commis- 
sioner at  Ruchuru,  got  up  once  to  the  summit  but  could 
see  nothing  on  account  of  the  clouds  of  smoke  and 
fumes.  Then  fire  broke  out  and  no  one  had  been  up 
since  that  last  eruption. 

Its  ascent  was  now  considered  impossible  on  account 
of  the  fumes,  but  from  the  Mikeno  camp  Mr.  Akeley  had 
noted  that  the  wind  blew  steadily  southwest,  so  the  other 
side  seemed  safe.  There  was  difficulty  in  approaching 
that  side  as  the  mountain  was  encircled  by  a  great  lava 
field,  an  outpouring  from  a  tiny  cone  in  the  valley  floor. 

146 


A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 

Yubile  was  its  native  name,  but  after  the  eruption  they 
called  it  "Chamunaniyo"  (they  shall  not  pass). 

That  lava  field  was  a  mass  of  broken,  porous  rocks — 
churned-about  blocks  like  dynamited  pyramids.  Plants 
were  finding  rootage,  and  the  low  waving  branches  of 
green  gave  it  the  air  of  a  field,  but  it  was  a  desperate 
thing  to  scramble  over,  and  practically  impassable  for 
porters  with  loads. 

But  Pere  Van  Hoef  knew  that  the  natives  knew  a 
way  across  to  the  opposite  forests  and  when  we  decided 
to  ascend  the  volcano,  he  got  us  guides  and  porters, 
though  he  had  his  doubts  about  the  porters  making  any 
ascent.  The  day  after  Thanksgiving  Day,  Mr.  Akeley, 
Miss  Miller,  the  two  Bradleys,  and  about  forty  luckless 
natives  wound  down  through  the  banana  groves,  past 
the  huts,  and  started  to  pick  their  way  over  the  lava 
field. 

It  was  the  world's  worst  going.  The  porters  made 
grass  sandals  for  their  feet,  and  clung  to  stout  sticks. 
They  began  to  yearn  volubly  for  home. 

In  the  Congo  your  worst  fears  are  never  realized. 
Something  that  you  didn't  fear  happens  instead.  We 
had  expected  a  beating  midday  sun  upon  that  lava  plain 
— we  got  a  freezing  storm  of  sleet  and  hail,  and  the 
hail  was  literally  the  size  of  hen's  eggs — Congo  eggs. 
The  Bradley  raincoats  were  on  the  head  of  the  porter 
somewhere  out  of  reach — the  porter  with  your  personal 
belongings  is  always  as  elusive  as  Peter  Pan,  while  the 
one  with  dried  beans  is  always  close  at  hand — so  we  had 
reached  a  shivering  saturation  point  by  the  time  we 
found  shelter. 

147 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

We  made  camp  in  a  glade  on  the  lower  slopes  of 
Nyamlagira,  and  then  for  two  days  those  guides  led  us 
round  and  round  that  mountain — anywhere  but  up. 

The  sides  were  cleft  with  fissures  and  ravines,  so  that 
we  had  plenty  of  climbing  to  do,  and  they  must  have 
cherished  the  fond  hope  that  if  they  exercised  us  suffi- 
ciently we  would  call  it  an  excursion  and  go  home.  They 
had  a  violent  aversion  to  approaching  the  crater,  and  an 
equally  poignant  sentiment  against  walking  up  the 
mountainside  on  an  elephant  track  with  our  luggage  on 
their  heads. 

Our  second  camp  was  in  the  jungle,  in  forests  utterly 
unlike  the  gorilla  forests  of  Mikeno  and  Karisimbi. 
There  were  no  evidences  of  gorillas  here,  and  none  of 
their  food.  There  were  elephants,  and  we  ran  into  them 
on  the  march.  We  heard  them  quite  near.  The  green 
was  too  dense  to  see.  We  waited ;  there  was  a  profound 
stillness,  the  snappings  and  rumblings  ceased  and  the 
cessation  told  that  the  elephants  had  seen  us  and  were 
waiting,  too. 

Then  some  branches  cracked.  The  porters  pitched 
their  loads — one  of  the  loads  being  Mr.  Akeley's  pre- 
cious camera — and  fled.  Mr.  Akeley  shot  at  random, 
and  the  result  was  what  he  hoped  for:  the  elephants 
crashed  off.  I  got  a  glimpse  of  a  gray  back  that  looked 
as  high  as  a  barn.  We  would  have  liked  an  elephant 
hunt,  but  we  could  not  take  time  from  the  ascent. 

The  third  day  the  porters  decided  to  stop.  They 
decided  it  every  hour.  At  last  Mr.  Akeley  got  the 
kilangozi,  the  headman,  far  enough  in  advance  to  be 
out  of  ear  shot  and  drove  him  up,  while  we  shepherded 

148 


A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 

the  rest,  like  reluctant  chamois.  One  or  two  bolted,  but 
the  others  struggled  up  the  elephant  trail,  through  the 
jungle,  on  through  barren  heights  of  sparse  grass  till 
we  found  a  camping  place  about  half  an  hour's  climb 
from  the  summit.  We  weighted  the  tents  down  with 
lava  rock  and  the  porters  made  huts  of  grass. 

Mr.  Akeley  went  up  ahead  to  the  crater,  then  went 
up  again  with  us  about  four-thirty.  Martha  and  I  went 
hand  in  hand  to  share  whatever  distinction  there  was  in 
being  the  first  women  to  put  our  heads  over  Nyamla- 
gira's  fire. 

We  stood  on  the  brink  of  a  great  crater  about  eight 
miles  in  circumference.  We  looked  down  into  a  colossal 
chasm  blown  out  by  three  separate  eruptions — table 
lands  and  bastion  walls,  cinder  slopes  and  spouting  steam 
and  billowing  sulphur  clouds — a  wild,  demoniac  place 
that  was  as  beautiful  and  mad  as  a  volcano  ought  to  be. 

The  fire  came  from  the  third  crater,  the  only  active 
one.  We  could  see  the  glow  and  we  made  our  way  for 
three  quarters  of  an  hour  about  the  summit,  over  jagged 
lava,  until  we  could  look  through  a  break  in  the  inner 
walls  into  the  pit  of  boiling  lava  from  which  came  the 
explosions  that  thundered  up  like  the  roaring  of  surf. 
It  was  a  gorgeous  sight — the  fire  of  the  very  heart  of 
the  world  at  our  feet  and  all  about  ethereal  distance 
and  great  mountains  melting  into  space. 

East  of  us,  across  the  wide  valley,  were  Mikeno  and 
Karisimbi,  purple  peaks  with  clouds  streaming  like 
banners  from  their  pinnacles,  and  Visoke,  the  third 
mountain  of  the  gorilla  triangle,  just  visible  on  the  left, 
and  yet  farther  to  the  left  Sabinio,  Mgahinga,  Muha- 

149 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

vura,  so  directly  in  line  that  they  seemed  one  mountain. 
Karisimbi  was  the  highest  of  all — 14,638  feet — and  a 
faint  sprinkling  of  snow  was  powdering  its  peak. 

Northwards  stretched  the  valley,  a  shadowy  reach  of 
forest  and  lava  plains,  guarded  east  and  west  by  moun- 
tain ranges;  south  were  the  slopes  of  Chaninagongo, 
and  across  from  us,  like  an  azure  cloud  against  the 
crater's  black  edge,  lay  distant  Kivu. 

We  looked  too  long.  The  sun  set,  night  swooped 
down  like  a  bat,  and  up  the  mountainsides  rolled  en- 
veloping white  cotton  clouds  of  fog.  We  tried  to  save 
time  by  taking  an  oblique  way  down  to  camp  and  for 
three  hours  we  floundered  in  fog  and  blackness  and 
rocks  and  ravines  and  brush. 

It  rained.  It  poured.  We  huddled  under  a  bush 
until  the  fury  of  the  storm  was  spent,  feeling  we  were 
taking  refuge  in  a  watercourse,  so  tremendous  a  fall 
of  water  washed  down  that  mountain's  sides.  Then 
we  kept  moving  to  keep  warm.  Ultimately  an  answer- 
ing "hallo"  from  camp  brought  us  down  to  our  wel- 
coming boys  who  were  fairly  pallid  with  fear  that  the 
devils  of  the  volcano  had  us! 

The  night  ended  in  hot  chocolate  and  dry  dressing 
gowns.  We  had  brought  but  one  change  of  clothes  on 
this  volcanic  expedition  and  both  my  suits  had  now 
been  caught  out  in  storms  and  hung  dripping  from  a 
line  in  my  tent.  It  seemed  to  me  the  next  morning  that 
they  were  wetter  than  when  I  had  hung  them  up  for 
the  mountain  dew  had  condensed  like  additional  rain. 
I  hesitated  between  them,  but  there  was  small  choice. 
Anyone  who  knows  the  delight  of  drawing  on  a  wet 

150 


A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 

bathing  suit  on  a  chilly  sunless  morning  knows  the  sen- 
sation. Yet  we  never  had  a  cold  nor  felt  the  least  ill 
effect  from  this  dampness. 

We  went  up  to  the  crater  next  morning,  planning  to 
spend  the  night  at  the  point  on  the  summit  where  we 
had  stood  the  night  before.  We  sent  some  porters  to 
the  left  to  carry  firewood  and  a  chop  box  and  some 
blankets  and  bags  to  that  place  and  a  piece  of  canvas 
for  protection,  and  we  ourselves,  with  other  porters  car- 
rying our  cameras,  started  on  an  exploration  trip  to 
the  right.  We  made  our  way  slowly  along  the  rim,  at 
first  over  upthrust  rocks  which  made  the  going  fright- 
fully difficult;  then  we  reached  a  place  quite  smooth 
with  cinders,  and  marched  until  a  dip  in  the  rim  enabled 
us  to  climb  down  to  the  level  of  an  older  crater  floor, 
billowing  white  with  clouds  from  yellow  and  green 
sulphur  beds. 

Three  distinct  eruptions  had  blown  the  interior  of 
the  crater  into  three  giant  abysses  separated  by  bastion- 
like  walls  of  rock,  stratified  and  colored  like  a  mammoth 
layer  cake.  Almost  in  the  center  rose  a  citadel  rock — 
the  "Castle,"  we  called  it,  amber  in  the  sun.  The  ter- 
race on  which  we  gained  admission  to  the  interior  was 
an  old  crater  floor,  blown  up  by  the  more  recent  erup- 
tions ;  it  was  ominously  hollow  sounding  and  we  started 
across  it  with  commendable  prudence,  clinging  to  a 
rope  and  testing  every  step.  But  after  we  found  the 
crust  supporting  and  the  sulphur  beds  harmless,  we 
grew  fairly  blase. 

That  terrace  ended  abruptly  in  a  clifflike  drop  with 
cinder  slopes  and  flats  far  below;  we  skirted  the  edge 

151 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

until  we  found  a  place  from  which  we  could  clamber 
down  to  a  little  ledge,  boulder  strewn  and  warm  with 
issuing  steam  jets,  leading  to  the  left;  to  the  right  a 
long  cinder  slope  stretched  down  toward  the  boiling 
lava;  we  saw  that  the  cinders  ended  in  another  drop. 
A  brief  rain  overtook  us  here  and  the  unhappy  camera 
attendants  found  opportune  refuge  among  the  boul- 
ders and  warm  recesses.  Then  we  retraced  our  steps 
across  the  flats  to  the  break  in  the  rim,  and  continued 
the  circumference  of  the  main  crater. 

We  estimated  later  that  it  was  about  eight  miles 
around  the  crater.  The  Chaninagongo  crater  which 
has  been  several  times  ascended  is  held  to  be  five  miles 
around.  For  a  time  our  way  was  up  and  down  among 
cinders  and  boulders ;  then  the  rain,  and  this  time  a  real 
rain,  overtook  us,  and  we  found  shelter  in  a  huge  cave, 
full  of  interesting  stalactites.  There  was  a  warm  cave 
next  to  it  which  attracted  our  camera  bearers.  As  soon 
as  it  cleared  we  completed  the  journey,  now  over  cin- 
ders, now  over  rough  porous  lava  rock,  till  late  in  the 
afternoon  we  reached  the  place  on  the  eastern  side  from 
which  the  night  before  we  had  looked  down  into  the 
blazing  lava  between  the  portals  of  high  rock. 

That  night  we  camped  there,  beside  a  boulder,  be- 
neath a  canvas  stretching  from  the  boulder  to  the 
ground,  weighted  down  with  rock.  The  porters  de- 
scended to  the  base  camp,  gladdened  with  a  franc 
apiece  for  backsheesh,  and  after  we  had  watched  the 
distant  fire  and  photographed  it,  we  laid  us  down  to 
sleep  upon  lava  rocks  lightly  overlaid  with  torn  up 
grass. 

152 


A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 

It  was  a  cold  night.  We  had  dressed  elaborately  for 
it,  discarding  nothing  and  adding  everything  in  the 
line  of  sweaters  and  raincoats  that  we  had.  It  was  none 
too  much.  That  we  slept  was  due  to  the  day's  gener- 
ous exercise  rather  than  any  cooperation  on  the  part  of 
the  rocky  beds  and  the  weather. 

Sunrise  was  a  gleam  of  gold  behind  amethystine 
peaks,  and  a  sea  of  cloud  rolling  through  the  valleys. 
During  breakfast  our  porters  appeared  with  water  and 
firewood,  faithful  to  the  rendezvous,  although  from  the 
new  faces  among  them  we  judged  several  originals  were 
unwilling  to  brave  the  volcano  again  even  for  a  franc. 

The  cook  came  up  with  them  from  the  base  camp, 
out  of  curiosity  to  see  the  devil's  fire,  but  he  was  too 
late  to  do  anything  for  us  but  clean  up;  we  had  to  be 
our  own  cooks  on  this  camping  party,  and  we  learned 
what  it  meant  to  get  any  sort  of  meal  on  a  fire  between 
three  stones.  I  knew  then  why  the  cook's  eyes  always 
looked  red  and  inflamed.  Our  firewood  on  the  summit 
was  particularly  trying  for  they  had  only  flimsy  stuff 
to  bring  up  to  us,  and  we  supplemented  that  with  brittle 
twigs  gathered  on  the  heights.  The  vegetation  on  the 
top  was  sparse.  There  were  a  few  canelike  stalks  of 
stunted  trees  and  a  little  brushwood  down  the  slopes, 
but  above  that  were  only  coarse  grasses  and  white  ever- 
lastings, and  tiny,  ground-gripping  creepers  with  small 
bright  blossoms. 

We  went  around  the  rim  again  to  the  spot  from  which 
we  could  descend  into  the  crater,  and  marched  out 
across  the  flats  for  half  an  hour,  feeling  well  acquainted 
now  with  sulphur  beds  and  not  blanching  when  an  un- 

153 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

wary  foot  broke  through  the  crust — the  fact  that  man 
and  woman  are  two-legged  beings  saved  some  of  us 
from  total  eclipse — and  reached  the  edge  of  the  terrace 
and  skirted  it  to  a  point  from  which  we  could  make  a 
further  descent  to  a  narrow  ledge  below.  To  the  left 
this  ledge  clung  against  the  precipicelike  walls;  to  the 
right  were  cinder  slopes  stretching  dizzily  down  to  end 
abruptly;  and  beyond  the  cinder  slopes  jutted  a  flat- 
topped  cliff. 

On  that  ledge  against  the  crater  wall  we  stretched 
our  shelter  cloth,  weighted  the  lower  edge  of  it  with 
tied-on  rocks  and  dropped  them  over  the  brink.  There 
was  steam  pouring  from  the  cracks  near  us,  and  sifting 
up  from  the  gravel  whenever  our  heels  scratched  it.  We 
had  no  fear  of  being  cold  that  night. 

Here  we  made  ourselves  at  home.  The  porters 
clutched  their  francs  and  took  what  they  clearly  thought 
the  last  look  at  the  mad  ones,  and  escaped.  Mr.  Akeley 
proceeded  to  climb  down  the  cinder  slope  to  the  right 
and  set  his  camera  on  the  edge  of  nothing.  We  could 
look  down  now  into  the  crater  pit  of  boiling  lava,  a 
great  mass  crusted  with  cooler,  darker  lava,  patterned 
with  gleaming  cracks  of  pure  gold  that  shifted  and 
changed  as  the  stuff  seethed  and  boiled  and  broke  into 
fountains  of  fire  or  rolled  into  molten  rivers  of  hissing 
flame. 

As  night  came  on,  the  cloud  above  that  cauldron  be- 
came a  glow  of  rose,  vivid,  unearthly,  a  rose  of  hell — 
a  drifting,  billowing  radiance  that  made  an  Inferno  of 
those  rocky  walls,  throwing  into  weird  relief  every  jut- 
ting ledge  and  rock,  filling  with  mysterious  shadow  the 

154. 


LAVA  IN  ERUPTION  IN  NYAMLAGIRA'S  CRATEE 


[page  154] 


THE  FIRE  POT  OF  NYAMLAOIRA — TAKEN  AT  NIGHT  BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT 

[page  154] 


PQ 


O 

O 


a 

•-5 

H 

cn 


A  NIGHT  IN  A  CRATER 

deep  recesses  and  dark  distance.  High  above  the  crater 
that  rose-red  cloud  streamed  out  against  a  sky  its  fire 
made  black.  Half  the  night  we  sat  out  upon  that  ledge, 
the  glory  of  that  spectacle  filling  our  eyes,  the  thunder 
of  it  in  our  ears.  ...  It  was  for  us  alone ;  we  had  been 
the  first  to  look  upon  it.  And  for  night  after  night, 
year  after  year,  that  glory  was  blazing  and  thundering 
away,  unseen,  undreamed.  .  .  . 

It  was  an  unforgettable  night.  It  was  Rome  burn- 
ing. It  was  Valhalla  ablaze. 

The  next  day  we  crossed  the  cinder  slopes  and  went 
to  the  edge  of  the  lower  terrace,  where  we  waited  hours 
for  the  fogs  to  lift  from  the  inner  chasm  so  we  could 
use  the  cameras;  then  at  noon  Martha  Miller  and  I 
started  back  to  camp,  our  green  bags  on  the  heads  of 
two  porters  and  a  boy,  Leo,  for  guide.  After  our  ex- 
perience that  first  night  Martha  and  I  had,  a  strong 
feeling  that  it  was  best  to  go  around  the  crater  to  a 
spot  just  over  camp,  then  descend  in  a  straight  line, 
but  the  porters  naturally  hated  the  hard  going  over  the 
stabbing  rock  edges  of  the  rim,  and  struck  down  on  a 
diagonal  line.  We  thought  that  we  could  trust  to  their 
sense  of  direction;  they  were  natives,  they  ought  to  be 
endowed  with  native  instinct  for  direction;  moreover 
Leo,  the  boy,  had  been  coming  up  every  day.  Light- 
heartedly  we  followed  them  and  emerged  from  a  stretch 
of  brush  to  find  one  porter  on  one  hillock  descending  to 
the  left,  and  another  on  another  hillock  streaking  it  for 
the  right,  and  the  boy  Leo,  a  lost  mariner  on  unchar- 
tered  seas,  shrieking  questions  at  them  both. 

And  then,  naturally,  it  rained.  Bitterly  we  ceased 

155 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

to  trust  to  their  native  instincts,  and  relying  on  our  own 
we  herded  them  ahead  of  us  and  ultimately  gained  the 
camp.  Their  deviations  had  cost  us  over  an  hour  of 
hard  going.  We  told  them  what  we  thought  of  them  in 
all  our  English  and  Swahili,  and  then  they  presented 
themselves  sheepishly  smiling,  for  a  present  for  their 
hard  work!  They  didn't  get  that  present. 

At  four  the  men  came  down,  having  tried  all  day  for 
pictures  and  been  thwarted  by  fog  and  clouds;  that 
night  was  the  coldest  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Our 
provisions  were  running  low;  we  could  have  hung  on, 
ourselves,  with  what  we  had,  and  we  had  splendid 
mountain  streams  of  water,  but  the  beans  on  which  the 
porters  subsisted  were  only  enough  to  get  us  back  to 
the  Mission,  so  we  started  down  the  mountain  the  next 
day,  our  porters  jubilant  at  leaving  the  Sheitani,  the 
fire  devils,  behind  and  eager  to  boast  their  experience  in 
their  villages.  Alone  in  Africa,  they  and  we  had 
looked  into  the  pit  of  Nyamlagira's  fire. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  THREE-STONE  KITCHEN 

HOUSEKEEPING,  on  an  African  safari,  was  a  never- 
ending  occupation.  Our  experiences  had  begun  on  the 
Lualaba  River  when  we  were  precipitated  violently  into 
the  need  of  a  cook,  and  our  boy  Mablanga  assumed  the 
role  until  we  found  a  regular  one.  Mablanga  cooked 
well  but  he  did  not  claim  to  be  an  "impishi"  (a  cook). 
That  was  his  mistake — and  ours.  If  he  had,  we  never 
would  have  allowed  him  to  resign,  but  perhaps  it  was 
as  well,  for  there  were  other  cooks  and  there  was  no 
such  useful  general  boy  as  Mablanga. 

At  our  first  camp  on  the  Upper  Congo,  Kabalo,  we 
had  started  getting  a  cook,  and  our  first  candidate  was 
Jim.  Jim  might  be  described  as  husky.  He  had  the 
robustness  that  would  have  made  him  king  of  Kentucky 
roustabouts,  and  a  smile  that  would  have  won  him  a 
place  in  the  Big  Time.  Jim  was  a  cook.  He  said  so, 
himself.  We  gave  him  a  day  to  prove  it,  challenging 
him  to  breadmaking,  and  after  we  had  seen  the  bread 
we  gave  him  his  choice  of  staying  on  as  a  tent  boy  or 
separating  himself  from  any  further  obligation  of  serv- 
ice. Jim  stayed. 

He  developed,  it  may  be  said,  not  as  a  cook,  but  as 
a  sort  of  over-boy.  He  was  as  strong  as  an  ox,  but  he 

157 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

seemed  to  be  preserving  his  strength  for  some  crisis 
which  never  came — he  produced  others,  who  did  what- 
ever work  we  were  calling  for.  Where  he  got  them 
was  a  mystery,  but  he  never  failed.  Of  course,  on  the 
march,  where  there  were  porters  available,  life  was  sim- 
plified for  him;  and  pails  were  filled  and  pegs  tight- 
ened and  bags  brought  in  by  easily  available  hands ;  but 
no  matter  where  we  were,  forests,  mountains,  plains, 
Jim  never  failed  of  his  supply  of  help.  He  had  always 
a  "moke"  (a  boy)  or  two,  some  little  grinning  pick- 
aninny, squatting  about  with  him,  running  for  water, 
dubbining  the  shoes,  and  hanging  the  wash  on  the  line. 
Of  course  there  were  a  few  things  that  Jim  could  not 
escape  doing  in  person,  but  to  do  him  justice  they  were 
very  few. 

I  own  to  a  weakness  for  Jim.  I  liked  to  ascribe  the 
whipping  he  got  from  the  soldiers  at  Kissenyi  to  his 
belligerent  loyalty.  When  I  had  the  fever  Jim  was 
sent  to  Nyunde  Mission  for  vegetables  and  oranges 
for  me,  and  a  boy  from  the  chef  de  poste  went  for  things 
for  him.  On  their  return  there  was  some  dispute  over 
the  oranges  and  when  the  other  boy  tried  to  take  fifty 
for  his  master  Jim  resented  the  attempt  especially  as  he 
had  carried  the  oranges — and  hit  the  boy.  I  expect  he 
hit  him  hard.  The  next  day  the  native  soldiers  came  and 
led  Jim  to  an  official  whipping  and  we  never  saw  Jim  in 
trousers  again.  They  were  new  trousers,  too.  He  had 
had  fifteen  francs,  three  weeks'  salary,  advanced  with 
which  to  buy  them,  for  the  garb  in  which  he  came  to  us 
was  chiefly  patches  and  a  huge  safety  pin.  After  the 
Kissenyi  episode  Jim  girt  himself  kilt-wise  with  a  tea 

158 


THE   THREE-STONE  KITCHEN 

towel,  and  anon,  when  his  shirt  was  beyond  all  aid  of 
thread  or  safety  pin,  he  split  another  ancient  towel, 
thrust  his  head  through,  tucked  in  the  ends,  and  was 
arrayed. 

But  to  go  back  to  the  cook  and  Kabalo — our  next 
experiment  after  Jim's  demotion,  was  Antoine.  An- 
toine  did  cook.  He  made  bread  of  sorts  and  mayon- 
naise, for  which  he  went  secretly  and  begged  vinegar 
from  the  administrator's  wife,  who  was  yet  unknown 
to  me.  He  was  enterprising  and  furtive  and  he  had 
an  assistant  of  a  villainous  cast,  and  when  the  Kabalo 
administrator  observed  the  precious  pair,  he  warned  us 
that  they  were  probably  robbers  and  not  worth  har- 
boring. 

We  didn't  like  Antoine  ourselves  and  his  bread  was 
nothing  to  cling  to,  so  we  explained  this  to  him  through 
Mr.  Akeley.  Mr.  Akeley  spoke  a  vehement  Swahili 
while  Antoine  knew  no  Swahili  and  only  a  pidgin  va- 
riety of  French.  Certainly  something  percolated  to 
Antoine  for  he  was  absent  from  camp  that  night  when 
we  returned  from  a  late  dinner,  and  there  was  no  break- 
fast for  us  next  morning  before  our  six  o'clock  train 
to  Tanganyika  left,  but  at  train  time  Antoine  turned 
up,  with  his  assistant  and  his  wife  and  a  bundle — and  we 
weakly  gave  him  three  francs  for  solace  and  departed. 

At  Albertville,  our  next  camp,  the  administrator  sent 
us  a  cook.  Mr.  Akeley  liked  his  looks.  He  said  so  and 
he  seldom  was  as  sorry  for  anything  else  he  said.  For 
we  kept  the  cook,  and  the  cook's  assistant,  who  played 
perpetually  on  a  small  musical  instrument,  the  m'bichi 

159 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

or  native  piano,  and  we  kept  too,  another  tent-and-table 
boy  who  presented  himself  with  them. 

He  was  a  shrimpish  boy  in  a  yellow  and  black  blazer 
that  some  one  had  given  him  and  his  name  we  took  to 
be  Sorrow  and  then  amended  to  Shallow  but  either  was 
inspired.  The  cook  may  have  had  a  name  but  he  did 
not  need  it.  We  found  others.  A  more  utterly  witless 
and  useless  individual  never  sat  under  a  tree  and  drank 
pombe.  Unfortunately  we  were  well  on  our  way  be- 
fore we  had  a  chance  to  discover  his  proclivities,  and 
after  we  had  disembarked  from  the  Tanganyika  boat 
and  landed  at  Usumbura  he  developed  fever,  a  real 
fever,  which  shielded  his  disabilities  for  some  time,  al- 
though the  moral  flaws  soon  became  apparent  as  re- 
lated in  the  episode  of  the  visiting  lady. 

On  the  safari  up  from  Tanganyika  we  tried  not  to  be 
too  hard  on  the  cook  and  the  cooking.  Most  of  our 
food  then  came  from  the  chop  boxes  and  took  little 
preparation,  but  his  own  handiwork  was  nothing  short 
of  a  calamity. 

His  bread  grew  soggier  and  soggier.  Part  of  this 
was  due  to  misunderstanding.  He  wanted  "dower"  or 
medicine,  meaning  native  pombe,  to  make  the  bread 
rise,  and  Mr.  Akeley  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  flour 
he  had  ordered  was  of  the  self -rising  sort,  only  needing 
mixing  with  water,  and  so  we  went  about  like  parrots, 
saying  "pana  dower"  (no  medicine)  to  the  cook  and 
getting  the  English-and-Swahili-speaking  boy  to  make 
it  clearer,  and  every  day  the  cook  brought  us  heavier 
and  stranger  bits  of  dough  sunk  depressedly  into  some 
cavernous  receptacle. 

160 


THE   THREE-STONE   KITCHEN 

Mr.  Akeley  explained  that  it  was  the  lack  of  sun 
over  a  tent  fly.  His  bread  in  East  Africa  had  always 
risen  beneath  a  tent  fly.  But  after  we  had  mixed  the 
stuff  ourselves  with  water  and  set  it  to  rise  beneath  a  tent 
fly — and  buried  it  where  the  boys  could  not  see — we  had 
our  suspicion,  and  I  never  said  "pana  dower"  from  that 
moment  but  ordered  the  native  banana  beer. 

However,  if  the  cook's  bread  were  not  enough  to  con- 
vict him,  his  meat  was  a  criminal  offense.  We  gave 
him  everything — chicken,  oxen,  elephant.  We  didn't 
blame  him  for  the  goat;  we  didn't  blame  him  for  the 
elephant,  we  didn't  blame  him  for  those  chickens  which 
chiefs  had  selected  for  presents  because  of  their  long 
and  distinguished  field  service,  and  we  didn't  blame  him 
wholly  for  the  first  ox — but  the  second  was  conclusive. 

We  had  reached  Kissenyi,  then,  where  we  had  fresh 
meat  and  vegetables  in  abundance,  and  on  their  behalf 
we  interposed.  It  wasn't  humane  to  allow  even  a  cab- 
bage to  be  treated  as  that  cook  treated  it.  We  remon- 
strated and  he  detached  himself  from  all  responsibility, 
withdrawing  into  a  Buddhistic  revery  about  meal  time, 
letting  the  other  boys  do  the  work.  He  was  accom- 
panied in  his  Nirvana  by  his  assistant  and  Shallow. 

The  night  after  Jim  had  his  falling  out  with  the 
government,  the  other  boys,  in  terror  of  the  heavy- 
handed  possibilities  of  the  post,  appeared  in  a  body  ask- 
ing for  a  dismissal  which  we  totally  refused.  Then  it 
dawned  upon  us  that  we  had  been  undiscriminating. 
We  decided  to  part  with  the  cook  and  the  cook's  helper 
and  with  Shallow,  and  in  another  day  told  them  that 
they  could  go.  But  they  would  not  go.  They  had 

161 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

changed  their  minds  about  Kissenyi  and  had  no  notion 
of  leaving  us.  They  regarded  themselves  as  permanent 
investments,  paying  no  dividends,  but  untransferable. 
Mr.  Bradley  actually  forced  the  money  upon  them,  and 
thrust  them  from  the  place,  yelling  like  banshees.  Then 
they  hung  about  waiting  for  the  twice-a-month  launch, 
and  when  it  appeared  it  was  unable  to  take  them  on,  so 
they  started  back  on  foot  to  the  melancholy  music  of 
the  assistant  cook's  piano.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they 
had  a  trip  through  lovely  country,  with  plenty  of  money 
to  make  it.  Our  hearts  were  not  wrung  for  them  and 
their  departure  had  a  bracing  influence  upon  the  camp. 

We  received  a  new  impishi  from  Monsieur  Wera,  the 
Kissenyi  chef  de  poste,  who  was  discarding  him  after 
nine  months  for  a  better  one.  He  was  fair  enough, 
he  said,  but  a  robber,  and  we  must  look  out  for  butter 
and  salt. 

I  believed  every  disparaging  thing  said  about  the 
donation.  A  more  uninviting  face  I  have  seldom  seen 
than  the  mistrustful  defiance  of  the  impishi.  How- 
ever, we  installed  him  over  the  three  stones  that  made 
a  kitchen,  before  the  tent  where  the  boys  slept  and 
wherein  they  cooked  when  it  rained,  and  he  installed  as 
a  helper  a  protuberant  youngster  whose  figure  was 
ruined  by  bananas,  whom  he  paid  out  of  his  own  forty 
francs  a  month  and  food  money. 

Vigorously  he  seized  on  the  meats  and  vegetables 
and  did  wonders  with  them.  He  gave  us  dinners,  real 
Belgian  dinners  with  two  meats — often  the  same  meat 
though  differently  prepared — and  then  he  went  to  jail. 

He  went  suddenly.  It  developed  that  there  was  a 

162 


THE   THREE-STONE  KITCHEN 

captain  of  the  launch  at  Kissenyi  and  the  captain's 
black  boy  had  a  black  lady  for  whom  the  cook  had  a 
fancy.  And  the  cook  had  just  been  paid.  Knowing  his 
face  I  can  only  attribute  his  success  to  his  pocketbook. 
Certainly  the  next  morning  when  he  was  fined  twenty 
francs  for  a  fight  with  the  black  lady's  revengful  first 
possessor,  a  fight  in  which  white  man's  property  was 
destroyed,  the  cook  had  no  francs  left.  We  promised 
the  chef  de  poste  to  send  them  back  as  soon  as  the  cook 
had  earned  them  and  so  we  did,  and  the  cook  went  on 
with  us  and  remained  with  us  throughout. 

So  did  his  proclivities.  Cook's  sisters.  He  found 
several  along  the  route  and  one  of  the  first  activities 
at  Lulenga  Mission  was  a  descent  by  Herbert  and  the 
White  Brother  upon  the  kitchen  house,  to  rid  it  of  its 
giggling,  bead  and  calico  encumbrances.  Nominally 
that  cook  counted  as  a  native  Christian.  He  wore  a 
medal  of  the  Virgin  and  he  went  to  Mass.  Some  day 
he  intended  to  take  a  wife  and  one  only.  Meanwhile 
he  was  undecided  as  to  her  indentity. 

But  whatever  his  romantic  or  religious  excursions, 
that  cook  was  a  cook  and  a  worker;  and  the  masterly 
way  he  got  into  camp  on  the  march,  set  up  his  tent,  and 
had  his  fire  going  between  the  three  stones  inspired  a 
just  respect.  We  accepted  him  as  a  permanent  institu- 
tion and  we  accepted,  too,  his  red  mattress  which  went 
from  camp  to  camp  on  the  head  of  a  staggering  porter. 
It  was  the  most  enormous  mattress  that  I  have  ever 
seen,  and  mysteriously,  from  day  to  day,  it  assumed 
more  and  more  swollen  proportions. 

Watching  it  being  heavily  hoisted  into  position  upon 

163 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  head  of  a  protesting  native  the  morning  of  the  start 
for  Nyamlagira,  Mr.  Akeley  thoughtfully  called  Kiani. 

"Kiani,"  said  he,  "is  there  a  woman  in  it?" 

Kiani  eyed  the  mattress;  then  he  looked  at  Mr. 
Akeley  in  earnest  reassurance.  "No,  sare — no  woman 
in  it,"  said  he. 

"Good,"  said  Mr.  Akeley,  relievedly. 

Ultimately  we  understood  that  mattress.  Chickens 
were  our  daily  repast  and  the  mattress  was  augmented 
daily  hy  a  steady  increase  of  chicken  feathers.  That 
explained,  too,  the  featherless  neatness  of  the  kitchen 
which  I  had  commended. 

With  this  cook  we  had  a  trifle  of  French  for  medium 
and  a  pair  of  English  words  and  one  or  two  Swahili. 
Our  chief  resource  in  interpreting  were  the  Elizabeth- 
ville  boys,  Kiani  and  Mablanga.  They  knew  a  little 
English,  Mablanga  more  than  he  vaunted,  and  Kiani 
much  less  than  he  tried  to  have  it  appear,  but  with- 
out them  we  should  have  been  pretty  helpless.  Kiani 
had  a  mediumistic  method;  he  got  a  word  or  two  as 
clue  and  then  tried  to  read  your  mind.  You  either 
wanted  a  thing  or  you  didn't  want  it,  and  so  you  either 
got  it  or  you  didn't  get  it.  There  were  happy  occasions 
when  your  desire  and  his  interpretation  coincided. 
Among  the  boys  he  was  a  humorist  and  his 
high-pitched  laugh  rang  out  continually  but  with  us 
his  humor  was  of  a  more  unconscious  kind. 

"Kiani,"  said  Mr.  Bradley  one  day,  surveying  sus- 
piciously the  water  brought  for  tea  making,  "Kiani, 
cook  wash  in  this  water?" 

164 


THE   THREE-STONE  KITCHEN 

"Yes,  sare,"  said  Kiani,  emphatically,  "cook  wash 
him  very  clean,  sare." 

Merrick,  the  third  of  the  Elizabethville  trio,  was  the 
wash  boy,  and  a  very  black,  smiling-toothed  youngster, 
lazy  beyond  all  competition.  Merrick  always  felt  that 
he  had  done  enough  if  he  brought  himself  into  camp ;  to 
do  any  work  after  he  got  in  was  an  infliction  of  the  in- 
scrutable white  man's  providence.  He  would  accept 
the  bundle  of  washing  and  the  allotted  soap,  and  then, 
at  every  little  addition  to  the  washing,  the  burden  of  the 
world  deepened  upon  him.  ...  It  was  just  so  much 
time  taken  from  his  beloved  little  musical  instrument 
which  he  kept  strumming  between  exertions.  Our  con- 
versation was  generally  confined  to  "Pana  mazuri"  (no 
good)  on  our  part,  anent  his  efforts,  and  "Table-cloth 
pana  mazuri,"  on  his.  Later  on,  I  regret  to  say,  Mer- 
rick fell  under  a  deserved  suspicion  of  theft.  In  camp 
a  boy  might  pilfer  a  little  soap  or  sugar  but  our  be- 
longings and  our  money  we  always  felt  were  absolutely 
safe. 

Mablanga  was  the  real  backbone  of  the  establishment. 
He  was  a  very  dark  boy  of  a  Congolese  tribe  found 
East  of  Elizabethville;  he  was  Kiani's  brother,  but  as- 
suredly of  a  very  different  mother.  His  age  was  about 
twenty-two  for  he  figured  that  he  was  near  fourteen  at 
the  time  of  the  Great  War.  That  boy  had  every  de- 
sirable and  reliable  quality.  He  was  quiet  and  respect- 
ful, and  amazingly  efficient;  he  cooked  and  served  ex- 
cellently; he  was  tidy  and  loved  to  keep  things  so;  he 
had  lived  with  two  English  families  and  longed  to  see 
England  and  America  and  the  world  beyond  his  hori- 

165 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

zon.  He  never  joined  the  other  boys'  dances;  the  night 
after  an  elephant  was  killed  when  the  boys  were  sway- 
ing and  stamping  and  clapping,  Mablanga  was  putting 
the  dining  room  tent  in  order,  doing  the  work  of  three. 
To  Alice  he  was  devotion  itself,  and  he  had  a  sweet  and 
gentle  smile  for  her  that  showed  the  boy's  real  affection. 
I  felt  that  Alice  was  as  safe  with  him  as  with  one  of 
us.  She  thought  everything  of  him,  and  on  the  march 
I  would  hear  her  little  voice,  "Mablanga,  in  America 
we  have  very  different  houses — houses  with  steps  in- 
side them,  Mablanga,"  and  Mablanga's  low,  sometimes 
quietly  amused,  "Yess,  missy."  He  announced  that  he 
would  not  stay  in  Africa  after  we  left  but  would  al- 
ways accompany  us.  "No  leave  baby,  missy,"  was  his 
continual  assertion.  I  was  sorry  that  at  the  end  we 
were  forced  to  decide  against  taking  him. 

Our  relation  to  these  boys  in  those  months  of  safari 
was  very  much,  I  imagine,  the  relation  that  existed  be- 
fore the  Civil  War  between  kindly  owners  and  their 
black  possessions.  These  boys  were  at  our  service  for 
any  one  of  the  twenty-four  hours,  for  just  as  much 
service  as  we  could  get  out  of  them.  But  they  were 
amply  safeguarded  from  overwork — excepting  always 
Mablanga  the  Untiring — by  their  native  leisureliness 
and  lack  of  responsibility.  There  were  so  many  of  them 
that  they  had  much  more  social  variety  than  we,  and  I 
am  sure  that  we  afforded  them  much  more  interest  and 
amusement  than  we  could  get  from  them. 

For  each  boy  we  had  a  book  in  which  Miss  Miller,  as 
secretary,  put  down  the  time  of  his  engagement  and  the 
money  he  was  to  receive  and  entered  every  drawing  he 

166 


[page  166] 


THE  THREE-STONE  KITCHEN  AND  ITS  AIDS 


[page  166] 


KILLED  BY  Liox — GRAVE  OF  MR.  FOSTER 


[page  175J 


THE   THREE-STONE   KITCHEN 

made  against  that.  On  the  march  they  drew  out  but 
little,  but  at  the  time  we  paid  off  the  porters  at  Lu- 
lenga,  Kiani  came  to  her  and  wanted  all  the  wages  due 
him — a  hundred  francs.  It  was  a  nuisance  to  get  the 
money  box  out  and  unnailed  again,  but  we  did,  and 
gave  him  his  hundred  franc  note,  and  Martha  made  the 
entry  in  his  book.  Then  he  promptly  tendered  it  back. 
He  wanted  her  to  keep  it  for  him.  He  had  no  use  for 
the  money.  All  he  had  craved  was  the  sensation  of 
being  paid. 

They  came  to  us  for  everything — clothes,  thread, 
cigarettes,  and  medicine.  It  was  a  dull  day  when  no 
boy  had  a  thorn  or  scratch  requiring  plaster  and  band- 
ages. They  were  very  much  a  part  of  our  lives — cheer- 
ful, grinning,  tattered  companions  of  the  march  and 
camp — black  shadows  of  many  a  mile — unfailing  ap- 
paritions to  the  evoking  shout  of  "Boyl" 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

MY  DAYLIGHT  LION  ON  THE  RUINDI  PLAINS 

ONCE  the  gorilla  hunt  was  over  we  had  planned  to 
turn  our  attention  to  some  of  the  smaller  fry  of  the 
African  fauna  which  usually  lure  the  adventurous  over- 
seas— the  elephants,  the  buffalo,  and  the  lion. 

We  were  not  at  all  bloodthirsty,  and  we  hadn't  the 
slightest  desire  for  indiscriminate  slaughtering,  but  we 
did  feel  the  lure  of  big  game  hunting,  and  I  was  con- 
vinced that  I  was  offering  any  of  the  animals  I  mentioned 
a'  more  than  sporting  chance  in  the  present  state  of  my 
shooting.  I  had  shot  at  one  elephant,  two  targets,  and 
three  crocodiles  in  the  three  months  in  Africa. 

Mr.  Bradley  particularly  wanted  a  buffalo,  Miss 
Miller  and  I  were  eager  for  lions.  Miss  Miller  already 
had  one  elephant  to  her  credit  and  I  was  hoping  for 
similar  luck.  We  had  very  little  time,  for,  although  Mr. 
Bradley  and  I  were  unhurried,  Mr.  Akeley  had  lecture 
engagements  in  America,  and  the  constant  delays  of 
safari  had  reduced  our  hunting  plans. 

The  volcano  had  cut  ten  days  from  the  schedule,  but 
the  gorillas  and  the  volcano  were  the  high  spots  of  the 
expedition.  Anything  else  was  an  after-climax.  Still, 
a  lion  can  be  a  vivid  after-climax. 

There  is  distinct  difference  of  opinion  among  hunters 

168 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

as  to  which  is  the  most  dangerous,  the  lion,  the  elephant, 
the  buffalo,  or  the  rhinoceros.  Drummond  puts  the 
rhino  first,  the  lion  second;  but  Mr.  Akeley  has  dis- 
credited the  dangers  of  the  rhino,  believing  most  of  his 
so-called  charges  are  simply  blundering  rushes,  not 
actuated  by  any  sight  of  the  enemy. 

Mr.  Akeley  puts  the  buffalo  first,  with  the  elephant  a 
close  second,  yet  he  said  he  would  rather  hunt  elephant 
than  lion ;  he  knew  he  could  stop  an  elephant — he  demon- 
strated that  the  day  on  the  plains — but  that  Leslie 
Tarlton's  experience  had  shown  that  a  charging  lion 
could  come  fifty  yards  with  a  bullet  in  his  heart. 

Stigand  puts  the  lion  first,  the  buffalo  last.  Freder- 
ick Selous,  mightiest  of  big  game  hunters,  puts  the  lion 
first  and  the  buffalo  and  elephant  on  a  par.  Colonel 
Roosevelt  stated  that  the  weight  of  opinion  among  those 
best  fitted  to  judge  was  that  the  lion  was  the  most 
formidable  opponent  of  the  hunter  under  ordinary 
conditions. 

In  the  Congo  we  had  not  been  in  game  country  to 
any  extent,  so  we  accumulated  few  stories  until  we 
reached  Kivu,  and  most  of  these  were  about  leopards. 
We  were  warned  to  close  our  tents  and  never  stir  with- 
out a  light  at  night  for  fear  of  prowlers,  and  the  native 
runners  were  never  sent  alone,  but  always  in  pairs. 

If  half  the  native  stories  were  true,  the  leopards 
exacted  an  amazing  toll.  Even  allowing  for  exaggera- 
tion, their  terror  was  so  real  that  it  must  have  a  good 
basis  of  fact.  The  Belgian  officials  and  missionaries 
had  many  instances.  At  Lulenga  the  Father  Superior 
pointed  to  a  banana  grove  that  we  were  passing  one  day 

169 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  remarked  casually  that  there  a  leopard  had  eaten  a 
young  native  woman  about  two  months  before.  The 
beast  had  entered  the  hut  at  night,  seized  her,  and 
dragged  her  into  the  banana  grove.  The  natives  had  not 
attempted  a  rescue,  but  at  daybreak  had  gone  for  the 
White  Father,  who  came  down  with  his  gun,  but  the 
leopard  made  off  and  there  was  nothing  left  of  the  poor 
woman  but  evidence. 

At  the  Mission  was  a  child  with  fresh  leopard  marks 
on  its  forehead.  The  leopard  had  entered  the  hut,  not 
for  the  child,  but  for  something  else,  a  dog,  I  believe — 
a  leopard  delicacy — and  had  wounded  the  child  in  its 
spring. 

It  is  rarely  one  sees  a  leopard.  They  are  too  wily  and 
catlike.  Men  have  lived  in  Africa  for  years  without  a 
glimpse  of  one.  Most  of  those  that  are  killed  are  got  by 
gun  traps  at  night.  On  the  other  hand,  Monsieur 
Flamand  of  Ruindi,  ran  into  three  one  afternoon  and 
shot  two. 

For  months  we  had  heard  of  the  Ruindi  plains  as  one 
of  the  richest  game  fields  left  in  Africa,  where  we  could 
find  antelopes  by  the  thousand,  and  buffalo,  elephants, 
and  lions  everywhere.  There  were  no  rhinos,  but  we 
were  not  after  rhino.  It  seemed  the  very  place  for  our 
needs  and  we  planned  to  move  out  there  with  all  speed. 

Moving  with  all  speed  in  the  Congo  means  going  into 
camp  and  waiting  for  porters.  Porters  from  Lulenga 
would  go  no  further  than  Ruchuru,  two  days  away,  and 
at  Ruchuru  we  would  have  to  get  fresh  porters  to  take 
us  out  on  the  Ruindi  plains,  a  three  days'  march.  There 
we  would  have  to  get  porters  from  Luofu,  two  days 

170 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

farther  on,  because  the  Ruchuru  porters  would  not 
remain  on  the  plains. 

With  real  regret  we  bade  farewell  to  our  good  friends 
at  the  Mission,  and  on  December  4  started  north  through 
the  Rift  Valley  to  Ruchuru. 

As  usual,  we  had  sent  a  runner  ahead  to  notify  the 
chiefs,  and  at  noon  of  the  first  day  we  found  a  chief 
out  to  greet  us,  with  the  grass  cut  for  a  camping  place 
and  eggs  and  delicious  bananas  for  a  present.  I  spent 
that  afternoon  writing  on  the  Corona  with  the  usual 
crowd  of  natives  sitting  curiously  about;  they  believed 
the  typewriter  some  sort  of  musical  instrument,  and 
must  have  marveled  at  the  monotony  of  the  air. 

Next  morning  we  made  a  leisurely  departure  at  seven- 
thirty,  and  about  noon  we  crossed  the  wild-rushing 
Ruchuru  River  on  a  picturesque  bridge  and  wound  up 
the  slopes  into  Ruchuru,  one  of  the  most  important 
stations  on  the  Eastern  frontier  of  the  Congo.  It  is  on 
high  ground,  at  an  elevation  of  about  five  thousand  feet, 
with  Lake  Edward  on  the  north  and  the  M'fumbiro  vol- 
canoes to  the  south.  From  the  elevation  the  climate 
ought  to  be  very  healthy,  but  it  is  not  considered  as 
excellent  as  Kivu.  Its  wide,  spacious,  flower-bordered 
avenues  gave  it  the  air  of  being  quite  a  place.  Like 
Kissenyi  and  Albertville,  it  seemed  a  stage  setting  wait- 
ing to  be  filled  with  the  actors. 

There  were  several  officials  at  Ruchuru,  the  Commis- 
sioner, the  chef  de  poste,  the  agent  territorial,  a  banker, 
and  there  had  been  a  doctor,  but  he  had  left  to  escort 
Madame  Deriddar  home,  leaving  the  infirmary  in  charge 
of  native  orderlies.  It  was  here  that  Monsieur  Deriddar 

171 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

had  been  brought  and  had  died  and  been  buried.  A 
domestic  touch  was  given  to  the  streets  by  seeing  two 
Belgian  babies  being  wheeled  about  in  improvised  per- 
ambulators, one  by  a  black  boy  nurse,  one  by  a  black  girl. 
It  was  the  first  time  since  entering  the  Congo  that  we 
had  seen  a  native  woman  employed  by  "Europeans" 
— the  term  for  all  the  whites.  Always  it  is  the  men,  who 
are  called  "boys"  to  their  last  days,  who  are  employed 
for  cooking,  baby  tending,  sewing,  and  washing.  Alice 
was  enchanted  with  the  babies;  the  little  blue-eyed 
Elizabeth  Piquard  was  her  especial  delight. 

Here  we  camped  in  a  grassy  square,  a  former  market- 
place, that  became  a  muddy  square  through  the  rains, 
waiting  our  porters  and  making  arrangements  to  leave 
Alice,  for  we  heard  that  the  Ruindi  was  too  hot  for  her. 
Commissioner  Van  de  Ghinste  and  his  bride  offered  to 
care  for  her,  but  we  borrowed  the  little  two-room  house 
that  belonged  to  the  Mission  Church,  hospitably  vacated 
by  our  very  kind  Pere  Van  Hoef ,  who  had  come  up  from 
Lulenga  for  special  services  here,  and  installed  her  there 
with  Priscilla.  They  had  the  devoted  and  untiring 
Mablanga  for  cook  and  caretaker,  Jim  for  assistant,  and 
all  the  resources  of  Ruchuru.  Attached  to  every  Bel- 
gian post  is  a  herd  of  cattle,  so  fresh  milk  was  obtained 
often  from  an  official's  private  supply.  Filtered  water 
was  also  provided,  and  the  Mission  at  Lulenga  sent  in 
fruit  and  vegetables.  The  thoughtfulness  and  kindness 
of  the  Belgians  were  unvarying  in  all  these  things, 
which  mean  so  much — especially  to  the  happiness  of  a 
child.  We  went  over  our  supplies  here  and  stored  the 
superfluous  things  in  the  warehouse,  for  we  were  to 

172 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

return  that  way,  and  with  seventy  porters  set  out  the 
morning  of  December  9,  northeast  toward  Lake  Albert, 
with  a  penciled  map  from  Pere  Van  Hoef  to  mark  the 
marches  and  the  haunts  of  game. 

Down  a  long  hill  we  coasted  gloriously  on  our  bicycles 
out  onto  the  plains  where  a  blue  rim  of  mountains 
seemed  pushed  back  against  the  horizon.  But  the 
bicycling  did  not  last  long.  The  elephant  grass  was 
high  and  the  path  through  it  a  winding  tunnel.  Ele- 
phant grass  is  so  called  because  you  never  find 
elephants  in  it ;  it  is  an  inedible,  giant  grass,  in  its  earlier 
stages  a  flat,  sharp-edged,  green  blade  and  when 
matured  and  dry  it  is  like  young  bamboo. 

At  the  foot  of  a  long  climb  we  abandoned  our  bicycles 
for  the  following  bicycle  boys  to  carry — that  is,  we  be- 
lieved there  were  following  bicycling  boys.  But  they 
had  abdicated.  We  never  saw  them  more.  They  had 
melted  away  to  their  villages,  and  probably  figured 
among  those  taken  by  leopards.  It  took  time  for  us  to 
be  convinced  of  their  departure,  and  no  amount  of  time 
reconciled  us  to  it,  for  we  were  forced  to  retrace  our 
steps  and  push  those  wheels  the  rest  of  the  day. 

That  morning  we  passed  a  group  of  natives  in  great 
excitement.  They  said  one  of  their  number  had  been 
seized  by  a  leopard  in  broad  daylight,  not  an  hour  before 
our  arrival.  In  the  story  which  reached  Ruchuru,  the 
leopard  had  taken  one  of  our  men. 

That  night  and  again  the  next  night  we  camped  on 
the  banks  of  the  Ruchuru  River,  a  swiftly  rushing 
stream,  whose  banks  were  so  netted  with  tropic  luxu- 
riance of  palm  and  vine  that  we  had  great  difficulty  in 

173 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

forcing  our  way  through  to  see  the  hippos  who  were 
snorting  and  blowing  all  about. 

Our  only  way  was  to  follow  the  hippo  trails,  which 
were  wide  enough,  but  very  low,  like  tunnels  through 
the  thick  green,  and  raked  by  every  imaginable  thorn. 
Possibly  the  thorn  produced  an  agreeable  tickling  in 
the  hippo's  hide.  It  did  something  else  to  mine. 

The  hippo  comes  out  at  night  to  feed,  and  the  ground 
was  crisscrossed  by  these  trails.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  first  hippo  I  saw  climbing  out  of  the  water.  His 
back  was  towards  me  and  I  thought  that  it  must  be  an 
elephant.  They  are  huge  beyond  belief. 

They  were  not  at  all  shy,  and  one  old  lady  who  came 
snorting  and  blowing  down  the  river  with  the  current, 
whirled  about  at  sight  of  us,  her  eyes  rounded,  her  small 
ears  cocked,  her  wide  mouth  set  with  astonishment.  She 
faced  us  while  the  current  bore  her  away,  then  she  sank 
and  either  swam  back  to  us  under  water  or  galloped 
on  the  bottom,  and  came  up  nearer  than  before.  She 
did  that  half  a  dozen  times,  then  appeared  with  a  comical 
replica  beside  her — her  baby — as  big  as  a  young  bull. 
She  had  probably  been  keeping  the  baby  on  her  back 
all  the  time.  They  kept  coming  back  delightedly  until 
we  wearied  of  their  entertainment  and  remarking,  "kwa 
heri"  (goodbye),  strolled  away. 

The  porters  wanted  one  killed  for  meat,  but  fortu- 
nately for  the  hippos  and  our  feelings,  the  animals  did 
not  show  themselves  on  land  where  we  could  get  them. 
A  hippo  shot  in  water  sinks  and  is  carried  off  by  the 
current. 

On  the  second  day's  march  we  came  to  Maji  ja  Moto, 

174 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

or  Hot  Water,  streams  of  really  scalding  water  smelling 
of  sulphuretted  hydrogen,  gushing  from  a  rock.  It  was 
here  the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg  experienced  his  most 
stirring  lion  hunts,  and  here  a  leopard  had  sprung  like 
a  flash  at  him  from  a  bush,  even  as  he  aimed  at  the  gleam 
of  her.  His  shot  had  pierced  her  neck  and  she  rolled 
dead  at  his  feet.  .  .  . 

We,  however,  saw  no  leopards  and  heard  no  lions 
that  night;  we  saw  only  antelope  and  heard  nothing 
but  the  incessant  snorting  of  the  hippos  as  they  splashed 
in  the  river  or  stumbled  in  the  darkness  against  our  tent 
ropes. 

The  third  day's  march  brought  us  into  the  territory 
of  the  Ruindi.  Here  Monsieur  Flamand,  the  adminis- 
trator of  the  territory  and  until  the  last  month  the  only 
white  man  within  its  borders,  came  striding  towards  us, 
having  walked  a  day  and  a  night  and  half  another  day 
from  Luofu,  his  residence  beyond  the  mountains,  to 
greet  us. 

Our  camp  on  the  Ruindi  was  on  a  high  plateau,  cleared 
like  a  parade  ground  for  fear  of  lion  and  encircled  by  a 
moatlike  ravine  through  whose  jungles  rushed  the 
Ruindi  River.  Across  the  ravine  we  looked  out  on  a 
wide  sweep  of  plains,  with  a  range  of  mountains  against 
the  sky.  It  reminded  me  of  some  Colorado  highland, 
and  we  began  to  wish  that  we  had  brought  Alice. 

Our  tents  were  strung  in  a  military  line  with  the 
grass  rest  houses,  one  of  which  we  used  for  a  dining 
room.  Across  from  us,  on  the  edge  of  the  plateau,  was 
a  mound  weighted  with  stones  and  embellished  with 
antelopes'  horns,  the  grave  of  a  young  Englishman, 

175 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

R.  C.  Foster,  killed  by  a  lion  two  years  before.  He  and 
his  brother,  both  experienced  hunters  from  British  East, 
had  gone  in  long  grass  after  a  lion,  shoulder  to  shoulder. 
The  lion  had  charged,  and  the  older  brother's  gun  missed 
fire,  and  the  lion  seized  the  young  brother  by  the  neck, 
bit  him  savagely,  then  sprang  away.  The  young  man 
lived  for  two  hours. 

It  was  a  melancholy  reminder  with  a  strong  personal 
interest  to  those  about  to  seek  the  lion  in  its  lair.  It  was 
here,  too,  at  Ruindi,  that  Mme.  Deriddar  had  been  so 
savagely  mauled.  It  was  this  same  Monsieur  Flamand 
who  had  cared  for  Foster's  grave,  nursed  Mme.  Derid- 
dar, and  tried  to  save  her  husband  who  had  died  of  the 
fever. 

It  was  December  12,  the  day  after  our  arrival,  that 
Monsieur  Flamand  took  us  out  to  tempt  Providence  and 
the  lions. 

Now  in  British  East  Africa  lion  hunting  is  a  cere- 
mony. Half  a  hundred  beaters  cover  the  brush  for  you, 
driving  the  game  your  way,  and  you  have  gun  boys  who 
can  be  relied  on  in  critical  moments,  and  you  have 
horses  whose  four  legs  can  be  used  to  run  the  lions  down. 
In  the  Congo  you  have  no  horses,  no  beaters,  and  no 
boys  who  can  do  more  than  carry  your  guns  until  you 
need  them.  Your  only  hope  is  to  run  on  a  lion  in  the 
daytime,  lying  up  after  the  night's  gorge,  or  to  stay  out 
in  the  bush  all  night  with  a  bait  to  attract  lions. 

This  morning  at  dawn  we  struck  across  the  plains, 
with  Monsieur  Flamand  for  guide.  The  trail  ran  like 
a  ribbon  over  the  level  land  to  the  mountains.  Against 

176 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

the  dry  browns  of  the  burnt  grass  the  green  of  the  scat- 
tered thickets  stood  out  darkly. 

The  plains  were  simply  alive  with  antelope.  There 
was  the  graceful  Thomas  cob,  a  lovely  dun  creature, 
with  conspicuous  white  markings  and  horns  like  a  big 
gazelle,  moving  off  at  our  approach,  then  pausing  to 
regard  us;  there  was  the  little  reed  buck,  green-gray, 
springing  away  with  a  sharp  whistle  of  alarm;  there 
were  droll,  dark  topis,  slant  backed,  turning  to  stare, 
then  with  a  comical  plunge  breaking  into  a  gallop  and 
making  off  in  a  line  like  race  horses.  The  topi  is  a  rare 
antelope,  and  it  was  extraordinary  to  see  it  in  such 
numbers;  it  is  from  four  to  five  feet  high,  with  deeply 
grooved,  backward  curving  horns.  The  skin  is  marvel- 
ous, fine  and  brilliant  as  watered  silk — a  dark,  warm- 
toned  brown  on  top,  brightening  to  cinnamon  below, 
with  splashes  of  black  on  shoulder  and  thigh,  all  overlaid 
with  a  sheen  of  bluish  gray. 

For  a  few  miles  we  went  along  the  path,  then  struck 
out  across  the  plains  where  the  tree  clumps  and  thickets 
were  frequent  and  might  house  a  lion  lying  up  after  the 
night's  hunting.  It  was  necessary  to  have  meat  for  the 
men,  and  Monsieur  Flamand  brought  down  a  cob  buck 
at  about  three  hundred  yards,  a  perfect  shot,  but  it  was 
sad  to  see  the  lovely  creature  sink  down  with  a  swanlike 
lift  of  its  head.  I  knew  then  I  should  never  be  able  to 
kill  one — and  I  never  did.  It  was  sheer  shirking  on 
my  part,  though,  for  some  one  had  to  kill  them  for  meat 
and  for  the  skins  which  we  wanted. 

At  Monsieur  Flamand's  suggestion  we  strung  out, 
the  better  to  cover  the  ground.  Mr.  Akeley,  seeing  no 

177 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

signs  of  lion,  went  off  with  Miss  Miller  to  photograph 
the  antelope,  but  Herbert,  Monsieur  Flamand,  and  I 
walked  on,  some  distance  apart,  scrutinizing  the  tangles 
and  little  hollows. 

"Be  careful,"  Monsieur  Flamand  had  warned  me. 
"Remember  Mme.  Deriddar." 

I  wondered,  as  I  strolled  along,  clasping  my  gun  and 
eyeing  the  innocent  looking  thickets,  how  I  was  to  be 
careful  and  get  my  lion.  It  was  a  lovely  morning.  The 
freshness  of  dawn  was  in  the  air,  the  dew  sparkling  on 
the  grass.  Golden-crested  crane  preened  themselves  in 
a  little  marsh.  There  was  a  pastoral  sweetness  to  the 
scene,  with  its  grazing  herds  of  antelopes,  that  was 
unrelated  to  anything  like  lion.  I  felt  a  self-conscious 
humor  in  my  scrutiny  of  the  bushes  for  the  waving  tail 
and  pricked  ears  I  had  been  told  to  look  for. 

Lions  were  unreal — fantastic.  But  here  and  there  a 
pile  of  bleached  bones  told  of  their  nocturnal  suppers. 
Certainly  lions  had  been  here.  I  had  no  idea  how  old 
the  kills  were,  for  the  vultures  pick  the  bones  in  a  day. 

It  was  eight  o'clock.  We  had  walked  a  little  over  two 
hours.  I  was  just  speaking  to  Monsieur  Flamand, 
whose  path  had  neared  mine,  when  a  call  came  from 
Herbert:  "Here's  your  lion,  Mary — look!" 

We  whirled  about  and  at  our  left,  a  little  distance 
away,  were  a  lion  and  lioness  going  through  the  grass. 
We  raced  towards  them  and  they  went  up  a  little  slope 
and  paused  on  the  crest  to  look  back  at  us.  They  were 
the  most  marvelous  picture  of  wild  life  that  Africa 
can  give. 

For  the  moment  they  stood  unmoving — green-gray 

178 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

statues,  cast  in  verdigris.  The  lion  seemed  tremendous, 
his  ruffled  mane  crisp  against  the  sky.  Then  they  made 
off,  with  a  supple  rippling  of  muscles,  heading  for  a 
long  reach  of  brush  at  our  right.  We  ran  as  hard  as 
we  could  to  cut  them  off,  but  they  were  out  of  sight 
among  the  thickets  when  we  reached  the  edge  of  the 
depression  in  which  the  thickets  were  scattered,  sur- 
rounded by  fairly  long  grass.  The  grass  was  tawny  and 
the  thickets  rusty  leaved,  and  as  we  peered  and  watched 
we  felt  the  matter  of  protective  coloring  was  decidedly 
overdone. 

As  we  stood  on  one  edge,  Herbert  watched  the  other 
side,  sure  the  lions  had  not  escaped  that  way.  The  wind 
was  blowing  from  that  direction,  so  we  went  around  and 
started  a  fire  to  try  to  drive  them  out.  But  the  grass 
burned  only  a  little  way,  then  died  at  the  first  green 
creeper. 

We  circled  the  rim,  and  a  native  who  had  joined 
us  told  us  he  had  just  seen  the  lions,  and  in  another 
moment  we  had  a  glimpse  of  the  big  fellow,  slouching 
across  a  little  opening,  his  tail  waving.  We  saw  the 
lioness  a  little  farther  away,  gliding  from  one  thicket  to 
another.  They  were  getting  farther  off  and  we  were 
afraid  we  might  lose  them,  so  we  went  down  into  the 
brush,  our  guns  ready,  scrutinizing  every  tangle  and  tree 
clump.  It  was  a  popular  covert.  Generous  piles  of 
antelope  bones  told  of  cob  and  topi  that  had  been 
dragged  there  to  conclude  an  evening  of  small  joy  to 
them. 

Monsieur  Flamand,  advising  extreme  caution,  would 
seize  one  of  these  bones  and  hurl  it  nonchalantly  into  a 

179 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

thicket,  observing  hopefully,  "Now  he  may  be  there!" 
When  I  did  the  same,  trying  to  keep  my  gun  pointed 
at  the  bombarded  thicket,  "I  have  such  fear  for  you— 
you  are  so  imprudent,"  he  told  me.  "Remember  Mme. 
Deriddar!" 

We  went  on  through  the  grass,  trying  to  be  as  sharp- 
sighted  as  possible.  There  is  a  real  thrill  to  life  when 
you  know  that  at  any  moment  the  rusty  leaves  and  the 
tawny  grass  may  part  before  a  hurtling  form.  We 
glimpsed  the  lioness  some  distance  ahead  and  started 
hurrying  along  on  a  little  trail,  Monsieur  Flamand 
ahead  and  Herbert  and  I  following. 

"Keep  midway  between  bushes,"  Herbert  advised. 
"That  lion  might  be  anywhere,"  and  just  that  moment, 
eyeing  the  thicket  at  my  left,  I  saw  the  lion.  He  was 
about  twenty  feet  away.  It  was  a  green  thicket,  for  a 
wonder,  and  through  a  hole  I  saw  the  ruddy  mane,  the 
ears  pricked  forward.  His  right  side  was  towards  me, 
as  he  was  facing  the  place  where  the  little  trail  ran 
towards  the  thicket. 

I  did  not  have  time  for  any  fear  except  the  ignoble  one 
that  I  might  not  get  the  lion  before  the  men  did.  It 
was  to  be  my  lion — they  had  made  me  a  present  of  the 
first  one  met — but  it  was  so  near,  so  ready  to  spring, 
that  their  guns  went  up  with  mine. 

I  fired  as  fast  as  I  could,  sighting  by  that  ear  and 
neck.  Monsieur  Flamand  fired  immediately  after,  but 
the  lion  had  gone  down  at  the  first  shot  with  a  roar  that 
reverberated  with  the  crashing  of  the  guns. 

We  waited.  There  was  absolute  silence.  Not  a  snarl. 
Holding  our  guns  in  readiness  we  made  our  way  to 

180 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

where  we  faced  the  opening  in  the  thicket  which  the 
lion  had  been  facing,  waiting  for  us  to  pass. 

A  deep  growl  greeted  us  and  I  fired  again.  There 
was  a  gurgling  roar  that  died  away  to  silence,  a  silence 
unbroken,  even  when  we  tossed  in  experimental  stones. 

We  tried  to  wait  a  decently  cautious  interval,  but  we 
didn't  overdo  the  matter  of  caution.  We  went  in,  guns 
ready,  and  there  in  the  cavelike  interior  a  large  lion  was 
stretched  on  his  side,  motionless,  apparently  having  just 
breathed  his  last. 

If  ever  a  lion  looked  dead  that  one  did.  He  wasn't 
stirring,  he  wasn't  breathing.  We  examined  the  wounds ; 
my  bullet  had  gone  in  the  neck  at  the  base  of  the  skull. 
The  frontal  one  had  gone  between  the  eyes.  He  had  a 
beautiful  skin  and  mane,  and  his  appearance  was  majesty 
itself.  I  had  to  remind  myself  that  his  death  was  salva- 
tion for  three  hundred  gentle  antelope  each  year. 

It  was  just  eight-thirty,  and  Monsieur  Flamand 
triumphantly  reminded  me  that  he  had  promised  me  a 
lion  by  half  past  eight.  He  was  certainly  a  man  of  his 
word.  Hastily  we  cut  down  the  overhanging  branches 
and  I  propped  the  lion's  head  in  my  lap  and  Herbert 
took  my  picture. 

Now  that  picture  shows  that  the  lion  had  his  eyes 
screwed  up.  If  I  had  known  as  much  about  dead  lions 
then  as  I  did  a  little  later  I  should  have  known  that 
when  they  die  the  eyes  are  open — not  with  the  lids  drawn 
in  a  paralyzed  sort  of  wink.  The  shade  was  too  thick 
for  a  good  picture  and  we  had  the  boys,  who  had  now 
come  up,  drag  him  a  little  bit  more  into  the  light.  Then 
I  knelt  by  him  for  a  second  picture.  In  that  picture 

181 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  eyes  are  wide  open — a  change  I  did  not  happen  to 
notice.  I  made  ready  for  a  third  picture  by  kneeling 
behind  him  and  trying  to  hold  up  the  heavy  head. 

It  was  a  magnificent  head.  It  had  a  dignity  so  impres- 
sive that  somehow  it  forbade  sympathy.  A  wounded 
antelope  sinking  down  is  poignant,  but  a  lion's  life  is 
swift  and  violent,  and  a  sudden  death  is  no  unfit  con- 
clusion— it  is  better  than  the  hyenas. 

I  was  thinking  all  this  and  trying  to  keep  the  head  up 
when  suddenly  that  lion  growled.  It  was  a  low  gurgling 
growl,  and  for  a  moment  I  was  sympathetic  as  I  held 
him. 

"Is  it  the  death  rattle?"  I  asked.  Monsieur  Flamand 
assured  me  the  lion  was  certainly  finished,  he  wasn't 
moving,  so  we  went  on  to  get  the  picture,  the  lion  growl- 
ing a  little  more  and  more.  And  then — just  as  that 
picture  was  taken — the  lion  roared!  The  roar  isn't 
audible  in  the  picture,  but  it  is  visible  in  my  expres- 
sion. It  was  the  most  astonished  moment  of  my  life. 
I  left  the  lion,  left  him  abruptly.  I  joined  the  men,  and 
we  stared  at  him.  We  saw  that  his  eyes  were  open  and 
he  was  breathing  with  a  regularity  and  vigor  that  would 
have  been  reassuring  to  an  anxious  nurse. 

Just  then  Mr.  Akeley,  who  had  heard  the  shots,  came 
hurrying  up  with  Miss  Miller,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  astoundedness  of  his  expression  nor  the  vigorous 
disapproval  of  his  remarks.  Fortunately  for  the  entente 
cordiale,  he  spoke  no  French.  He  was  conveying  that 
the  lion  was  very  much  alive  and  would  recover  from  his 
temporary  paralysis  at  any  moment  and  kill  us  all. 

Anthony,  as  I  had  christened  him — quoting,  "I  am 

182 


MRS.  BRADLEY  AND  THE  Liox  THAT  DID  NOT  STAY  DEAD 

[page  182] 


THE  "DEAD"  LION  THAT  ROARED  AS  His  PICTURE  WAS  TAKEN 

[page  182] 


TOPI  STAKED  OUT  FOR  LION  BAIT 


[page   193] 


NATIVES  ON  THE  RUINDI  PLAINS 


[page  193] 


THE   LION  THAT  CAME  TO  LIFE 

dying,  Egypt,  dying" — had  ceased  growling;  he  was 
breathing  naturally  and  his  eyes  full  of  intelligence, 
followed  us  watchfully.  His  expression  was  positively 
benign,  but  I  did  not  know  how  far  one  could  trust  to 
it.  So  far  he  had  not  stirred,  and  recklessness  inspired 
me,  and  while  Mr.  Akeley  kept  the  gun  on  him,  we  took 
one  last  photograph,  and  then  I  shot  him  through  the 
heart.  His  convulsive  bound  before  he  fell  back  on  his 
side  was  proof  of  astonishing  vitality,  and  then  the  swift 
glassy  change  told  me  how  death  really  looked. 

He  was  a  young  male,  with  a  fine  skin  and  mane,  the 
only  mane  of  any  lion  we  got  that  was  not  alive  with 
ticks. 

The  lioness  had  gone  out  of  sight  and,  after  the  grim 
business  of  skinning,  we  went  on  after  her  and  later 
walked  unending  hours  across  the  dry  stubble  of  the 
plain  or  through  longer  tangling  grass  trying  for  a 
lion  for  Martha  or  Herbert.  We  saw  three  others  in 
the  early  part  of  the  morning,  but  they  got  into  wood 
so  dense  there  was  no  hope  in  following. 

Later,  after  a  conservative  estimate  had  placed  our 
walk  at  twenty  miles,  we  felt  a  positive  indifference  to 
finding  anything  more — unless  we  found  it  right  in 
front  of  us  and  in  a  recumbent  attitude !  We  came  back 
to  camp  after  nine  hours  of  exercise  and  found  a  herd 
of  elephants  squealing  and  racketing  in  the  woods  by 
the  river.  They  had  chosen  their  time  well ! 

We  matabeeshed  (rewarded)  the  gun  boys  and  por- 
ters and  bathed  and  changed,  and  found  a  black  runner 
had  brought  in  a  packet  of  mail  from  home.  With 
devouring  eagerness  we  read  our  three-months-old  let- 

183 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

ters,  then  dined  outdoors  in  a  lovely  sunset,  while  the 
elephants  trumpeted  about  and  the  baboons  came  out 
on  the  ravine  slopes  for  food.  Then  as  night  came  on 
a  fire  in  the  brush  spread  out  in  blazing  splendor  for  a 
mile,  flinging  the  acacias  in  ebony  silhouette.  The 
cracklings  came  across  to  us  like  firecrackers.  Then 
the  flame  died  to  an  amber  glow.  The  moon  swung  sud- 
denly out  from  the  clouds  overhead  and  turned  the  world 
to  silver.  Out  of  the  stillness  came  the  hunting  grunt 
of  lions  on  the  plains. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

NIGHTS  IN  A  "BOMA";  NELLIE,  THE 
FAITHFUL  LIONESS 

THE  moon  was  bright  now,  a  tropic  moon  directly 
overhead,  casting  inky  pools  of  shadow  beneath  our  feet. 
Every  night  we  heard  the  distant  roaring  of  lions  and 
that  hungry  hunting  grunt  of  theirs.  Their  hunting 
noise  is  really  a  series  of  grunts,  beginning  with  one  low 
one,  followed  by  six  or  more  hurried  ones,  ending,  after 
an  instant's  pause,  with  about  three  long-drawn-out 
grunts,  generally  increasing  in  loudness.  Um — 
um-um-um-um-um-um um — um — UM  ! 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  tell  how  far  away  those 
grunts  are.  Whenever  you  hear  them  you  are  always 
inclined  to  think  the  lion  is  behind  the  next  bush.  To 
hear  them  from  our  camp  made  us  eager  to  spend  a 
night  in  the  brush  and  see  the  night  life  of  the  jungle 
and  try  for  lions. 

The  way  to  try  for  lions  at  night  is  to  kill  an  antelope 
about  half  a  mile  from  where  you  want  to  use  it  and 
have  it  dragged  that  half  mile  to  leave  a  good  trail; 
then  you  stake  it  down  in  front  of  the  thicket  where 
you  conceal  yourself  and  wait. 

You  try  to  arrange  the  scene  so  the  moonlight  will 
be  on  the  bait,  with  a  clear  background  against  which 

185 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  lion  will  show  up  well  when  he  comes  to  dine.  You 
pile  as  much  fresh  brush  as  you  can  artistically  upon 
your  thicket  or  "boma,"  as  the  hiding  place  is  called, 
for  the  lion  can  see  as  well  by  night  as  by  day,  and  you 
leave  a  peephole  for  outlook  and  your  gun.  You  have 
to  get  into  the  boma  by  sundown  for  the  moment  the 
first  gray  shadows  creep  over  the  plain  comes  that 
hoarse  grunt.  And  then  you  sit  perfectly  still  and 
wait  for  twelve  hours. 

Before  Monsieur  Flamand  left  us  Mr.  Bradley  went 
out  one  night  with  him,  but  though  they  heard  lions  all 
night  they  had  no  chance  at  a  shot,  except  at  mosquitoes. 
We  had  no  mosquitoes  at  all  in  our  camp,  but  this  boma 
was  six  or  eight  miles  away  from  camp,  by  a  water- 
hole  in  the  brush.  However,  a  waterhole  was  a  good 
place  for  game,  so  the  next  night  Mr.  Akeley,  Miss 
Miller,  and  we  two  Bradley s  went  again  to  the  same 
boma  to  try  our  luck. 

It  was  a  natural  thicket,  reenforced  with  greenery  so 
the  lions  wouldn't  see  us  too  easily,  and  the  clearing 
within  the  thicket  was  so  absurdly  spacious  that  we 
spread  boughs  for  any  weary  ones  to  lie  upon  during 
the  night. 

We  had  our  porters  carry  out  a  chop  box  and  blankets 
to  this  retreat.  Then  the  porters  left  and  we  ensconced 
ourselves  and  dined  sketchily  within  it.  I  had  a  fore- 
boding at  the  time  that  the  flavor  of  green  onions  and 
cheese  was  not  likely  to  help  conceal  our  presence.  We 
were  surprised,  as  always,  by  the  swiftness  of  the  tropic 
night,  for  at  five-thirty  by  our  watches  the  sun  dropped 
behind  the  mountains,  and  at  six  o'clock  Martha, 

186 


LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

Herbert,  and  I  were  sitting  in  the  dusk,  guns  in  hand, 
peering  out  through  loopholes  in  the  boughs  at  the 
mournful  nose  of  a  poor  dead  topi. 

The  moon  rose,  the  dark  turned  silver  clear,  the  lions 
grunted  and  roared  but  not  one  came  near  us.  But 
the  mosquitoes  came.  They  came  humming  in  swarms 
and  settled  on  every  vulnerable  inch  of  us.  But  for  the 
strangeness  of  the  scene,  I  could  have  believed  myself 
back  in  dear  old  Wisconsin  on  a  June  night.  But  we 
were  handicapped  here  as  we  were  not  in  Wisconsin. 
There  we  could  at  least  attempt  to  protect  ourselves. 
Here  to  lift  a  hand  and  deal  a  slap  was  to  bring  reproach 
upon  yourself  from  your  fellow,  and  equally  tormented, 
hunters.  Any  noise  at  any  moment  might  cost  a  lion. 
With  grim  self-control  we  learned  to  blot  mosquitoes 
in  slow  silence. 

Mr.  Akeley  was  not  trying  for  a  lion.  He  reposed 
peacefully  most  of  the  time  upon  the  boughs,  and  from 
time  to  time  the  two  weary  Bradleys  took  their  turns, 
but  Martha  Miller  sat  unstirring  upon  her  camera  box 
for  nine  long  hours  until  the  moon  sank  and  the  morn- 
ing light  began  to  steal  over  the  far-away  mountains. 

We  decided  that  the  location  was  not  a  happy  one, 
and  that  we  would  abandon  the  neighborhood  of  the 
waterhole.  A  day  later,  Mr.  Bradley  took  out  the  tiny 
pup  tent,  at  Mr.  Akeley's  suggestion,  and  squeezed  it 
into  the  center  of  another  thicket  some  distance  away, 
cut  three  portholes  in  the  sides  for  guns  and  set  up  three 
steamer  chairs  within  it  which  filled  it  to  repletion. 
Then,  leaving  a  porter  to  guard  the  antelope  he  had 

187 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

killed  and  staked  out  in  front,  he  came  hurriedly  back 
across  the  plains  for  Martha  and  me. 

We  dined  at  five  and  at  five-thirty  we  started  off. 
Our  camp  was  encircled  by  such  a  deep  ravine  that  we 
had  always  a  sharp  scramble  down  and  then  a  long 
climb  up  the  perpendicular  sides  of  it  before  we  gained 
the  opposite  plains.  Three  luckless  porters  carried  our 
bicycles  up  for  us  and  once  on  the  plains  we  mounted 
them  and  set  out  along  the  tiny  ribbon  of  native  path 
running  out  to  the  western  mountains. 

The  world  was  bright  with  color  when  we  started; 
we  were  riding  straight  into  the  mountains  of  azure 
through  fields  of  grass  that  seemed  like  waving  golden 
grain.  Here  and  there  the  scattered  trees  and  brush 
glimmered  with  that  lovely  green  that  comes  just  after 
the  sun  has  gone. 

We  cycled  as  fast  as  we  could  but  the  light  went 
faster.  The  mountains  grew  darkly  purple,  then  coldly 
gray.  The  grass  lost  its  gleam  of  gold  and  became 
vague  and  mysterious  with  blotting  shadows  of  forest 
reaches.  The  path  ceased  to  glimmer  whitely.  The 
world  was  spectral  gray. 

At  our  left  we  heard  a  lion  grunt.  Um,  um-um-um- 
um-um-um — um — um — UM  ! 

It  was  uncannily  near.  We  cycled  a  little  faster,  re- 
membering that  there  was  but  one  gun  in  the  group  and 
that  was  on  Herbert's  wheel  and  difficult  of  access. 
There  was  no  use  getting  it  out  until  we  stopped  cy- 
cling. Martha's  wheel  and  mine  were  a  little  short  for 
carrying  guns  so  we  had  left  our  Springfields  for  the 
porters  to  bring  on,  and  the  porters  were  trotting  after 

188 


LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

us  somewhere  out  of  sight.  It  was  but  a  few  minutes 
after  six  but  the  mountains  had  shouldered  the  day  so 
quickly  out  of  the  way  that  it  seemed  like  midnight  at 
home. 

The  lion  was  keeping  right  up  with  us,  grunting 
away,  somewhere  out  on  those  plains  at  our  left.  It 
was  no  use  for  us  to  tell  each  other  that  he  was  probably 
a  mile,  a  half  mile,  away — he  wasn't.  And  he  could 
see  us.  Probably  on  our  wheels  he  took  us  for  a  new 
species  of  antelope.  It  seemed  to  me  that  our  crouch- 
ing pose,  our  apparent  flight,  would  just  naturally  in- 
vite him  to  the  chase,  and  I  realized  that  being  on  horse- 
back was  no  bar  to  an  attack  by  lions;  I  had  heard 
innumerable  stories  of  men  set  upon  when  riding  casu- 
ally homewards.  Even  with  my  frail  memory  for 
names  I  could  remember  that  there  was  a  Mr.  Pease,  a 
former  magistrate  in  the  Transvaal,  who  had  been 
pulled  from  his  horse  by  a  Hon. 

I  wished  I  hadn't  remembered  his  name.  It  seemed 
to  make  it  more  real. 

And,  then,  at  our  right,  another  lion  grunted.  There 
are  people  to  whom  a  lion's  roar  is  the  most  terrifying 
thing  in  the  world,  but  I  think  that  a  lion's  grunt,  that 
businesslike  hunting  grunt,  is  the  most  chilling  sound 
that  I  have  ever  heard.  And  these  grunts,  hard  as  they 
were  to  place,  sounded  unmistakably  close. 

Just  why  the  lion  grunts  when  hunting  no  one  knows. 
One  theory  is  that  it  is  done  to  start  up  the  game  and 
I  can  easily  believe  it — that  sudden  reverberating  inti- 
mation of  a  lion's  presence  would  send  every  panic- 
stricken  little  hoof  flying  in  revealing  clatter.  Later, 

189 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

when  the  lion  has  his  prey  located  and  is  ready  to  strike, 
there  is  never  a  warning  noise  from  him. 

We  cycled  so  fast  that  we  soon  reached  the  brush  and 
in  a  few  minutes  we  thought  we  had  come  to  the  right 
place  to  leave  the  path  and  our  wheels  and  strike  off 
for  the  boma.  There  was  a  lone  tree  to  our  left,  the 
landmark  that  Herbert  was  watching  for,  with  a  bush 
at  the  right,  and  beyond  the  scattering  of  thickets.  We 
abandoned  our  wheels  at  the  pathside  and  Herbert  got 
out  his  gun  with  a  speed  considerably  accelerated  by 
the  increasing  concert  from  the  lions,  and  then  we 
plunged  into  the  grass  towards  the  thicket  where  the 
ambush  ought  to  be.  Herbert  had  left  a  boy  to  see 
that  nothing  made  off  with  the  bait  before  we  arrived 
and  we  began  to  whistle  to  this  boy.  No  boy  responded. 
We  tried  again.  Then  we  called.  He  couldn't  be  asleep 
— not  with  those  lions  about.  My  immediate  theory 
was  that  he  had  been  eaten  by  lions — not  the  present, 
grunting  lions,  but  other  previous  lions,  now  silent  and 
replete. 

We  stared  about  in  the  darkness  at  the  dimly  loom- 
ing thickets.  They  were  all  utterly  unidentifiable. 
Any  one  of  them  might  be  our  boma.  Any  one  might 
be  the  retreat  of  some  lion  lying  up  during  the  day  and 
just  ready  to  sally  out  afresh.  I  remembered  the  lions 
I  had  seen  starting  from  thickets  just  two  days  before 
on  the  plains,  the  day  I  had  killed  my  lion.  And  when 
Herbert  began  plunging  briskly  about  up  to  the  black 
thickets  to  find  the  dead  antelope  and  the  ambushed 
tent  I  remonstrated  feelingly,  while  keeping  close  to 
him  and  the  protecting  gun.  I  reminded  him  that  the 

190 


LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

Foster  brothers,  back  to  back  with  two  guns,  had  not 
been  able  to  ward  off  a  lion  in  broad  daylight. 

But  Herbert  was  not  concerned  with  warding  off 
lions.  He  was  only  afraid  that  our  conversation  would 
frighten  them  away  before  we  found  the  boma.  The 
boma  was  apparently  a  little  further  on.  It  was  cer- 
tainly not  here. 

We  stood  there  in  the  sinister  gray  dark  with  the 
snuffling  grunts  coming  a  little  closer  all  around  us. 
I  carried  Mr.  Akeley's  little  flashlight  worked  by  a 
dynamo  which  threw  a  spot  of  light  a  few  feet  ahead, 
but  I  did  not  feel  that  it  was  bright  enough  to  annoy 
a  lion — it  was  nothing  but  a  little  wink  of  light.  As 
I  stared  out  in  the  vague  reaches  beyond  us  something 
moved.  It  melted  quickly  from  bush  to  bush. 

I  said  in  an  extremely  flat  and  quiet  tone  which  I 
trusted  indicated  perfect  calm  and  absence  of  tremor, 
"There  is  a  lion  just  ahead  of  me.  Point  the  gun  that 
way." 

And  then  in  a  similarly  unmoved  and  casual  voice 
Martha  remarked,  "There's  a  lion  on  this  side,  too.  Bet- 
ter keep  the  gun  circling." 

We  sounded  as  if  we  said,  "Why,  there's  Mrs. 
Brown-Jones  coming  for  tea.  Better  put  on  an  extra 
cup." 

"They  won't  come  near  while  you're  talking,"  said 
Herbert,  and  he  added  in  a  discouraged  way,  "Now 
they  probably  won't  come  near  us  all  night." 

I  thought  his  discouragement  was  premature.  Those 
two  lions  were  calling  across  us  to  each  other  in  a  more 
and  more  intimate  understanding.  I  can  jest  about  it 

191 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

now — I  could  jest  about  it  then — but  I  had  a  very  per- 
fect understanding  of  what  terror  was.  It  was  in  the 
helplessness  of  it  all — not  having  a  gun,  not  having  a 
revolver,  knowing  that  if  anything  did  come  I  hadn't 
the  defense  of  a  stricken  antelope.  And  the  whole  sit- 
uation was  shot  through  and  through  with  a  feeling  of 
responsibility  for  Martha. 

Wholeheartedly  I  advocated  abandonment  of  the 
brush  and  a  return  to  the  path.  Back  we  went  and  as 
we  stood  there  in  the  path  between  the  grass  fields  and 
a  stubble  of  burnt  ground,  where  a  heap  of  bleached 
bones  glimmered  with  wan  reminder,  I  felt  a  surge  of 
remorse.  That  very  morning  I  had  laughed  lightly  at 
runners  who  wanted  to  go  in  threes  instead  of  twos — 
I  had  been  skeptical  of  their  tales  of  a  lion  attacking 
them  the  previous  night  and  felt  they  were  trying  to 
make  a  social  excursion  of  their  errands. 

Now  I  knew  that  three  runners  were  none  too  many. 
Not  three  times  three.  And  I  knew  why  they  kept  such 
fires  at  their  camps. 

I  tried  a  little  fire  myself  but  the  grass  would  not 
burn,  so  we  kept  the  searchlight  swinging  and  talked 
in  loud,  nonchalant  tones,  while  the  lions  grunted  back 
and  forth,  apparently  heartening  each  other  to  have  the 
first  go  at  us.  "No,  you  have  the  first  choice.  .  .  . 
After  you.  ..." 

Then  we  heard  another  noise,  faint,  far  away.  .  .  . 
More  lions,  I  thought  for  a  moment,  but  it  was  the 
babble  of  the  porters  coming  on  down  the  path  towards 
us.  Nothing  was  ever  such  music  to  my  ears. 

There,  on  those  backs,  were  our  guns.  And  there 

192 


LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

in  those  black  heads,  was  the  native  geography  to  lead 
us  to  our  boma.  The  men  came  on,  half  a  dozen  of 
them  huddled  together  in  a  din  of  talk.  We  knew  then 
why  porters  are  so  conversational.  It  is  their  life  in- 
surance policy  on  lion  nights. 

Paddling  swiftly  along  they  soon  reached  us,  in  the 
lead  a  wizened  old  mite,  spear  in  hand,  my  camera  strap 
across  his  forehead,  my  camera  bumping  his  bare  back. 
We  clutched  our  guns  and  a  blessed  peace  enveloped  us. 
That  awful  helplessness  was  gone.  We  fell  in  behind 
the  leader  and  that  grizzled  mite  led  us  on  and  on  for 
half  an  hour,  then  struck  into  another  stretch  of  scrub. 

There  was  an  extraordinary  similarity  of  marking — 
the  same  tree  at  the  left,  the  same  bush  at  the  right,  the 
same  scattering  of  thickets.  We  went  farther  and  far- 
ther along,  then  the  guide  gave  a  hyena  call  which 
brought  a  swift  echo  from  the  boy  on  guard  in  the 
ambush. 

There  was  our  dead  topi  and  there,  in  the  thicket, 
our  waiting  tent.  Martha  and  I  squeezed  in,  thrusting 
our  breakfast  box  and  bags  with  coats  and  sweaters  un- 
der the  chairs;  Herbert  hurriedly  dragged  the  kill  to 
a  spot  a  little  more  in  view,  staked  it  down  so  no  lion 
could  drag  it  away — and  the  porters  fled. 

Before  we  could  get  comfortably  settled,  the  lions 
were  roaring  around  us.  We  crouched  in  the  chairs 
trying  to  peer  out  the  peepholes,  which  were  sagging 
too  much  with  the  weight  of  the  brush  piled  outside  and 
the  drag  of  our  guns  in  the  apertures,  and  wished  that 
we  had  necks  like  flamingoes. 

It  was  seven-twenty  when  we  were  inside,  black  dark, 

193 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

with  the  kill  scarcely  discernible.  We  heard  constant 
grunting  ...  we  heard  the  whistle  of  a  reed  buck 
leaping  with  alarm,  then  a  hard  patter  of  racing  ante- 
lopes flying  for  their  lives.  A  lion  must  be  near.  We 
maintained  a  positive  torture  of  silent,  neck-breaking 
attention. 

The  moon  slipped  out  from  the  clouds  at  last,  a  blood- 
red  circle  bringing  the  foreground  to  something  like 
distinctness.  And  then  I  relaxed,  leaving  the  watch 
to  the  others.  I  was  at  the  right  end  and  my  view  was 
very  circumscribed.  Martha  was  in  the  middle.  The 
first  lion  was  to  be  hers,  and  after  she  fired  the  first 
shot  we  were  all  to  fire  as  fast  as  we  could  to  give  him 
all  the  lead  we  had. 

I  was  just  resting  my  neck,  which  had  been  curved 
like  an  Arab  steed,  when  I  heard  Martha's  gun  go  off 
into  the  stillness  like  the  incarnation  of  all  noise.  I  got 
a  glimpse  then  of  a  huge  lion,  heavy  maned,  looming 
before  us  at  an  angle  to  which  I  tried  in  vain  to  jerk 
my  gun,  and  that  same  instant  the  roar  of  Herbert's 
big  gun  followed  Martha's  Springfield,  and  the  white 
smoke  from  it  obscured  the  scene. 

Then  was  a  thud  of  galloping  feet.  When  a  lion 
stalks  in  to  you  he  is  silence  itself,  but  when  he  gallops 
off  his  padded  feet  hit  the  ground  as  hard  as  a  horse's. 
And  then  we  heard  roars,  horrible  roars.  He  was  at 
our  left,  in  the  brush,  evidently  badly  wounded.  The 
roars  became  groans,  dying  down  spasmodically.  It 
is  a  wretched  thing  to  hear  a  wounded  beast  groan,  but 
one  can  fortify  oneself  by  remembering  the  violence 
by  which  he  lives,  the  ruthless  clawing  down  of  ante- 

194 


LION  HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

lopes.  And  to-night,  remembering  those  encircling 
grunts,  those  dim  shapes  gliding  from  bush  to  bush,  I 
knew  just  how  the  poor  antelopes  felt,  milling  about  be- 
wilderedly,  their  noses  strained,  their  flanks  quivering 
with  fearful  expectation. 

We  heard  fainter  and  fainter  noises  from  the 
wounded  lion  and  shrill  above  them  the  vixenish  yelp- 
ing of  jackals  teasing  him.  Then  the  groans  died  away. 
We  pressed  Martha's  hands  excitedly.  She  had  her 
lion,  we  felt  sure.  And  he  was  a  big  fellow  with  a  fine 
mane. 

This  was  at  nine  o'clock.  One  by  one  the  other  hours 
went  by,  with  lion  calls  now  far,  now  near.  The  moon- 
light was  marvelous.  We  saw  jackals  steal  out  to  the 
kill  and  hyenas  and  two  swift  cat-like  creatures,  either 
leopards  or  serval  cats.  Out  in  the  brush  a  hyena 
laughed  horribly.  All  the  night  noises  and  all  the 
night  life  of  the  jungle  went  on  about  us  as  they  had 
been  going  on  from  the  beginning  of  time. 

It  had  a  wild  fascination  that  stirred  the  blood.  It 
was  Beauty  and  Night  and  Violence.  .  .  .  Every  time 
a  lion  sounded  near,  excitement  held  us  tense.  .  .  . 
At  twelve  I  was  holding  the  watch  alone  and  I  waked 
the  others  silently  to  see  two  leopard-like  forms  run- 
ning in  about  the  kill.  They  suddenly  fled  and  then 
we  stiffened. 

At  our  left  a  lion  appeared,  walking  past  the  thicket 
to  the  kill,  as  silent  as  a  picture  on  a  screen.  He  seemed 
tremendous.  The  dark  outline  of  him  against  the 
moonlit  grass  and  sky  was  a  perfect  thing,  a  great, 

195 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

calm,  arrogantly  assured  presence.     Majestic  is  the 
word  for  lions.  They  appropriate  it. 

Herbert  waited  till  he  had  sure  aim  and  shot.  The 
lion  never  knew  what  struck  him  down.  The  guns 
drowned  his  roar. 

There  is  no  way  to  tell  of  the  tense  excitement  of 
such  a  moment.  The  nerves  thrill  with  the  old,  primi- 
tive passions  of  the  time  when  life  was  cast  on  a  die. 
The  countless  generations  that  have  stalked  their  prey 
stir  through  us.  And  the  blood  that  loves  to  race  and 
thrill  and  is  tired  of  beating  tamely  through  a  safe  life 
quickens  to  exhilaration. 

Night  shooting  has  not  the  danger  of  the  daytime,  for 
unless  the  wounded  beast  happened  to  charge  directly 
at  our  ambush  we  had  nothing  to  fear.  But  it  has  the 
element  of  uncertainty,  and  the  constant  edge  of  expec- 
tation that  any  moment  will  come  the  instant  upon 
which  all  your  chances  of  success  are  staked. 

We  saw  other  lions  that  night,  but  far  away.  One 
that  we  took  to  be  the  faithful  lioness  kept  running  back 
and  forth  in  the  dim  distance  and  calling  her  dead  mate. 
She  flitted  by  again  in  the  morning  dark,  and  Herbert 
risked  a  sudden  shot,  but  we  couldn't  see  what  happened. 

About  dawn  a  terrific  roaring  sounded  on  our  left, 
and  we  feared  that  Martha's  lion  was  coming  to  life 
again.  Then  the  roaring  grew  farther  away.  As  soon 
as  we  could  see  in  the  dimness,  Herbert  squeezed  out 
of  the  ambush  and  glimpsed  a  lioness  off  at  the  left 
making  into  a  thicket.  He  fired,  but  without  result. 
There  was  no  sign  of  the  wounded  lion.  He  had  appar- 
ently revived,  like  Anthony,  and  made  off. 

196 


ONE   NIGHT'S   KILL — MR.   BRADLEY   WITH   Two   LIONS   SHOT  BY   HIM 

[page  198] 


Miss  MILLER  AND  HER  LION 


NATIVES  MAKING  FIRE  WITH  FIHE  STICKS 


[page  220] 


READY  FOB  THE   MARCH 


[page  220] 


LION   HUNTING  AT  NIGHT 

Out  in  front  lay  Herbert's  lion,  a  very  fine  male,  and 
behind  him,  so  directly  in  line  as  not  to  be  visible  from 
the  thicket,  the  creamy,  soft-furred,  graceful  creature 
whom  I  christened  Nellie,  the  Faithful  Lioness. 

In  each  case  Herbert's  bullet  had  penetrated  the 
heart,  severing  the  arteries.  Death  had  been  instant. 

I  felt  a  little  sentimental,  looking  down  on  Nellie. 
Her  faithfulness  had  cost  her  her  life,  but  I  was  glad 
that  she  had  gone  with  her  mate  and  not  been  left  to 
mourn.  .  .  .  But  the  jungles  are  ruthless  to  illu- 
sion. Naturalists  have  no  pity.  Nell  was  Nimrod — a 
young  two-year-old  male,  who  had  hung  about,  not  from 
sympathy  but  for  his  dinner,  and  run  in  for  a  snatch 
at  the  antelope. 

Lions  are  strangely  indifferent  to  other  dead  lions  on 
the  bait.  We  heard  of  five  that  had  been  shot  over  the 
same  kill  and  here  we  had  three  that  came  in,  one  after 
another.  Several  young  males  often  hunt  in  bands  with 
one  or  two  older,  and  thei  apparent  lioness  that  Herbert 
had  seen  making  off  at  dawn  might  have  been  another 
such  young  maneless  two-year-old  as  the  erstwhile  Nell. 

We  never  did  get  that  first  lion  of  Martha's,  although 
we  searched  the  coverts  and  watched  for  days  to  see  if 
the  vultures  gathered. 

For  three  more  nights  we  went  out  again,  with  one 
night  in  between  for  sleep,  but,  though  the  lions  roared 
all  about  us,  not  one  stepped  out  where  we  could  get  a 
shot  until  that  third  night. 

That  night  the  moon  was  not  due  until  after  one. 
From  six  to  twelve-twenty  we  had  been  watching  stead- 
ily and  uselessly  through  the  dark.  A  lion  had  been 

197 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

grunting  on  our  right,  and  apparently  coming  in  to- 
wards the  kill,  but  for  some  time  we  had  not  heard  him. 
We  had  alternated  tense  concentration  with  relaxing 
disappointment. 

Then,  just  at  twelve-twenty,  from  the  right  came  a 
great  shadow,  black  against  the  lightening  night,  still 
as  silence  itself.  Not  a  twig  cracked  under  the  padded 
paws.  Not  a  leaf  rustled. 

It  was  Martha's  lion.  I  held  my  gun  on  him  waiting 
for  her  to  fire  first.  It  seemed  an  eternity  until  she  shot ; 
she  chose  her  aim  with  care.  Then  I  followed.  There 
was  a  tremendous  roaring  and  the  lion  was  down.  We 
saw  the  great  bulk  of  him  in  the  shadow  before  us ;  his 
roaring  filled  our  ears.  He  was  fatally  wounded — 
Martha's  shot  had  penetrated  the  brain — but,  to  prevent 
an  escape  and  a  difficult  chase,  we  flashed  the  searchlight 
out  one  peephole  while  Herbert  gave  him  the  big  gun 
in  the  heart. 

He  was  a  splendid  lion.  I  think  he  had  really  the 
finest  mane  of  all.  It  was  our  last  lion.  Herbert  and  I 
went  out  again  and  we  took  out  Priscilla  Hall,  who 
had  reached  us  now  with  Alice.  We  sat  up  in  vain. 
Though  we  continued  to  hear  lions  every  night,  we  got 
no  more  shots  at  them  here — the  moon  gave  us  only  an 
hour  or  two  of  light  now,  and  the  lions  were  more  wary. 


CHAPTER  XV 

ELEPHANTS  AND  BUFFALO 

BIG  GAME  HUNTING  IN  THE  JUNGLES  OF  THE 
RUINDI  RIVEB 

THE  Ruindi  plains,  when  first  penetrated  by  sports- 
men about  fifteen  years  ago,  must  have  been  one  of  the 
world's  richest  game  fields.  The  plains  lie  south  of 
Lake  Albert  Edward  and  stretch  west  to  a  range  of 
nameless  peaks  beyond  which  live  the  insoumis,  the 
natives  who  refuse  to  accept  the  Belgian  rule.  The  level, 
grassy  tract  is  broken  by  light  acacia  growth  and  occa- 
sional patches  of  brush  often  thickening  into  forest,  and 
it  is  cut  by  a  deep,  wide  ravine  choked  with  jungle, 
through  which  wanders  the  Ruindi  River  on  its  way  to 
the  lake. 

The  plains  are  simply  swarming  with  antelope,  cob, 
topi,  and  reed  buck,  grazing  in  literal  thousands,  but 
the  buffaloes,  which  a  few  years  before  had  been  discov- 
ered feeding  boldly  on  the  steppe,  have  been  made  wary 
by  occasional  shooting  and  have  taken  to  the  tangled 
jungles  and  the  deep  marsh  of  elephant  grass  on  the 
river  edge. 

Through  those  same  jungles  and  adjoining  uplands 
the  wide  elephant  trails  tell  a  story  of  the  past  that 
must  have  been  wealth  amazing  to  the  first  poachers; 
now  only  shreds  of  the  old  herds  travel  those  trails,  and 

199 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

these  are  ready,  at  the  first  alarm,  to  stampede  back 
to  the  impenetrable  retreats  in  the  western  mountains. 

To  get  an  elephant  or  a  buffalo  now  on  the  Ruindi 
means  luck  and  work.  We  thought  that  luck  had  played 
into  our  hands  the  night  after  I  killed  the  lion  which 
refused  to  stay  dead,  for  on  our  return  to  camp  we 
heard  elephants  trumpeting  on  the  slopes  below. 

Mr.  Akeley  inquired  of  the  natives  if  the  herd  were 
on  this  side  of  the  river,  and  the  answer,  through  inter- 
preters, was  that  it  was  not.  An  after  examination  of 
the  country  proved  that  the  interpreter — or  the  inter- 
preting— was  wrong,  and  that  the  elephants  had  been 
just  below  us. 

If  we  had  known  it,  we  would  certainly  have  gone 
down  after  them,  amply  exercised  as  we  were  after 
twenty  miles  of  lion  searching,  but,  believing  that  we 
should  have  to  make  a  great  circle  and  cross  the  river  to 
get  them,  we  let  the  occasion  go  by  and  dined  with  their 
squeals  and  trumpetings  in  our  ears. 

We  planned  to  go  down  on  them  next  morning,  and 
Monsieur  Flamand  had  natives  out  to  locate  the  herd. 
We  arose  at  dawn  and  after  breakfast  started  off  after 
the  guides,  crossing  the  deep  ravine  that  encircled  the 
camp  and  climbing  up  to  the  plains  on  the  north  and 
east  of  the  river. 

There  were  plenty  of  baboons  in  this  ravine,  and  we 
met  them  nearly  every  day  scurrying  about  the  slopes  or 
crossing  a  log  bridge  of  their  own.  They  were  aloof 
but  not  particularly  intimidated  and  on  one  occasion  a 
huge  fellow  remained  in  the  path  in  front  of  Herbert 
and  myself,  with  a  menacing  air  that  made  us  look  about 

200 


ELEPHANTS  AND   BUFFALO 

for  our  guns.  The  gun  boys,  with  the  light-hearted  lack 
of  responsibility  which  made  their  cooperation  so  desul- 
tory, had  chosen  that  moment  for  a  merry  bath  in  the 
river  and  our  guns  were  somewhere  along  the  shore.  By 
the  time  we  had  snatched  them  up  and  advanced  again 
the  big  baboon  had  decided  not  to  dispute  our  way  and 
went  off  across  the  log  bridge  with  very  grumpy  barks. 
One  of  them  who  felt  mischievously  inclined  would  make 
a  wicked  antagonist  for  an  unarmed  man. 

This  morning  we  followed  the  edge  of  the  plains, 
skirting  the  canyon  through  which  the  river  wandered 
unseen  in  its  jungles.  We  looked  down  on  bits  of  forest 
that  were  marvelously  beautiful  and  utterly  unlike  any- 
thing else  that  we  had  seen.  Instead  of  the  crooked,  flat- 
topped  trees,  so  characteristic  of  African  landscape,  in- 
stead of  the  low-branching,  moss-laden  giants  of  the 
gorilla  forest,  we  had  trees  that  were  fantastically  tall 
and  straight,  and  the  effect  of  hundreds  of  them  in  a 
luxuriance  of  festooning  vine  was  of  indescribable 
grace. 

Among  these  towering  varieties  were  the  gigantic 
false  fig  trees.  From  the  bark  of  this  tree  the  natives 
make  bark  cloth.  They  cut  out  a  piece  of  bark  from  the 
living  tree  and  hammer  it  with  scored  ivory  tools  until 
it  has  stretched  to  surprising  dimensions  and  worked  to 
suppleness.  It  is  very  strong  when  pulled  against  the 
grain,  but  at  the  least  strain  in  the  other  direction  it 
shreds  like  fiber.  It  has  a  beautiful  reddish  color — that 
is,  when  first  worn.  Most  of  it  that  our  porters  wore 
was  indistinguishable  from  a  black  rag.  The  men 

201 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

draped  it  with  classical  grace,  catching  it  nonchalantly 
on  the  left  shoulder. 

With  a  bit  of  bark  cloth,  a  gourd,  a  bag  knotted  of 
fiber,  a  clay  pipe,  a  bundle  of  fire  sticks,  a  knife  or 
spear,  all  home  made,  the  native  is  ready  for  any  emer- 
gency, and  will  have  warmth  and  food  where  your 
white  man  could  die  for  lack  of  matches  and  tinned 
meat. 

The  fire  sticks  are  a  precious  possession  and  are 
usually  carried  within  four  or  five  tightly  fitting  cases 
of  skin  to  insure  dryness.  A  hole  is  cut  in  a  bit  of  soft 
wood  and  into  that  a  piece  of  hard  wood  is  fitted  and 
twirled  about  with  a  rapid,  downward  motion  of  the 
hands.  I  have  seen  a  skillful  man  have  the  soft  wood 
fired  in  three  trials.  Sometimes  a  bit  of  tinder  or 
charred  rag  is  kept  at  the  junction  of  the  sticks  to 
catch  the  spark,  but  the  Ruindi  natives  made  fire  with 
only  the  wood  itself. 

We  walked  along  the  edge  until  the  rim  began  to 
break  down  into  slopes  and  brush  covered  declivities, 
leading  into  the  jungles.  We  passed  water  buck  and 
topi  and  cob,  who  moved  off  and  turned  to  stare  in  big- 
eyed  surprise,  and  at  a  distance  we  saw  the  grasses 
close  over  the  flitting  shapes  of  a  lion  and  lioness  going 
home  after  a  night's  hunting.  Our  guides  began  to 
lead  us  to  the  left,  into  brush  that  grew  thicker  and 
thicker,  motioning  us  to  extreme  caution  and  silence 
in  our  advance. 

The  herd  was  in  the  jungle  ahead.  The  wind  was 
blowing  from  us  to  them — a  circumstance  that  your 
Congo  native  takes  into  no  account  at  all.  Mr.  Akeley 

202 


ELEPHANTS  AND  BUFFALO 

felt  decidedly  that  the  element  of  surprise  was  going 
to  be  lacking  in  our  attack.  He  was  anxious  to  get 
motion  pictures  of  elephants  before  we  tried  for  our 
hunting,  but  pictures  could  be  obtained  only  by  maneu- 
vering about  with  the  greatest  regard  to  wind  and  direc- 
tion, so  he  merely  followed  along  with  his  gun  in  his 
hands  and  his  camera  men  at  his  heels. 

Monsieur  Flamand  led  with  Herbert  following,  and 
I  came  after  with  Martha  next  and  then  Mr.  Akeley. 

The  trail  grew  fresher  and  fresher;  here  several  ele- 
phants had  been  milling  around;  here  one  had  stood 
under  a  spreading  tree.  Branches  were  torn  off,  bark 
peeled,  a  tusk  rubbed  against  the  trunk.  .  .  .  Now  the 
green  grew  denser.  It  was  difficult  to  see  Herbert's 
figure  ahead;  I  had  to  walk  fast  to  keep  up  with  the 
men.  The  difficulty  of  walking  fast  over  tangled 
ground,  of  trying  not  to  let  a  twig  crack  beneath  you, 
and  at  the  same  time  keeping  a  keen  outlook  for  a 
shadowy  spot  of  elephant  showing  through  the  leafy 
screens  is  no  mean  task  for  an  amateur. 

Suddenly  everything  happened — it  happened  all  at 
once  The  brush  came  alive  and  snapped  and  cracked 
in  every  direction.  It  was  full  of  thrashing,  unseen 
shapes.  A  gun  behind  me  boomed — Martha's  Spring- 
field. I  whirled  about  and  saw  Mr.  Akeley's  gun  go 
up  and  off.  And  at  the  same  time  I  saw  what  he  was 
firing  at — something  big  and  black  opening  over  the 
bushes  at  us — the  outstanding  ears  of  an  enraged  cow 
elephant  swinging  in  on  us. 

I  didn't  have  time  to  revel  in  the  sensation  of  an 
elephant  charge.  I  merely  had  a  feeling  of  blank  sur- 

203 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

prise  as  if  I  had  seen  a  large  umbrella  open  over  my 
head.  Then  the  umbrella  collapsed.  Mr.  Akeley's 
shot  directed  through  the  ear  into  the  brain  brought  her 
down  in  her  tracks. 

Back  of  them  loomed  the  back  of  another  elephant, 
a  cow,  and  I  fired  at  her,  Martha  joining,  and  after  a 
wavering  moment  she  turned  and  crashed  off.  Ahead 
of  me  a  cannonading  told  that  Herbert  and  Flamand 
were  having  their  excitements.  Flamand  was  shooting 
at  an  elephant  ahead  of  him;  Herbert  turned  an  old 
bull  with  a  shot  in  the  head.  He  saw  him  throw  up  his 
trunk,  spread  his  ears  and  make  off.  The  fall  of  the 
cow,  who  was  apparently  the  leader  of  the  stampede, 
turned  the  herd. 

We  had  the  glimpse  of  a  baby  elephant,  a  streak  of 
black  running  away  from  the  dead  cow.  For  some 
time  that  little  one  kept  thrashing  and  blundering 
about  the  brush. 

We  had  been  coming  straight  down  the  trail  which 
was  the  elephants'  way  out  from  that  jungle,  and,  with 
the  wind  at  our  backs,  they  must  have  known  for  an 
hour  that  we  were  on  the  way.  We  concluded  that  all 
the  elephants  had  bolted  and  that  the  hunt  was  over 
for  the  day.  The  bull  that  Herbert  had  fired  at  had 
small  ivory,  so  there  was  no  use  in  pursuing  that  one, 
and  we  certainly  did  not  want  to  kill  another  cow. 

We  went  over  to  the  dead  elephant  and  found  her  a 
splendid  animal  with  a  very  noble  looking  head.  She 
had  also  a  tail  with  more  hairs  and  longer  hairs  than 
Mr.  Akeley  had  ever  seen.  I  measured  one — twenty- 
one  inches  long.  These  hairs  are  black  and  wiry  and 

204 


ELEPHANTS  AND   BUFFALO 

very  much  sought  after  by  the  natives  for  bracelets. 
By  soaking  they  can  be  rendered  pliable  enough  to 
twist  and  knot.  The  tusks  of  the  cow  could  be  left  till 
it  was  easier  to  cut  them  out,  but  the  men  set  to  work 
at  once  upon  the  ears  and  portions  of  skin  that  they 
wanted  to  save,  and  Martha  and  I  were  sitting  down 
to  wait  in  the  shade  some  distance  away,  when  a  thrash- 
ing behind  us  made  us  reach  convulsively  for  the  guns 
left  negligently  against  a  tree. 

Either  the  wounded  cow  or  the  toto — the  baby — 
was  coming  back  to  investigate,  but  we  fired  in  the  air 
and  the  noises  grew  farther  and  farther  away.  Once 
or  twice  more  the  elephants  came  back,  and  once  we 
saw  the  toto  cruising  about  in  the  brush.  We  kept  our 
guns  near  while  we  lunched  in  a  nearby  glade. 

The  marabou  storks  were  winging  in  from  every 
direction  to  feast  upon  the  kill  and  Mr.  Akeley  re- 
mained that  afternoon  to  try  for  a  picture  of  them. 
Coming  home  that  night  he  discovered  that  our  ele- 
phants had  not  all  bolted,  that  the  natives  had  not  led 
us  to  the  main  herd.  On  the  slopes  below  him  eleven 
elephants  came  shouldering  through  the  green,  one 
after  another,  and  he  got  the  camera  in  position  and 
photographed  them.  There  was  a  huge  bull  among 
them  with  splendid  ivory.  In  order  to  get  the  last  bull 
to  turn  and  face  the  camera  Mr.  Akeley  fired  across 
his  path  and  got  his  picture  as  he  swung  around.  From 
the  camp  we  had  heard  the  distant  trumpeting,  so  we 
hoped  for  another  elephant  hunt. 

We  should  have  gone  that  next  day.  We  heard 
them  only  one  more  night.  When  we  went  into  the 

205 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

jungles  again  the  elephants  had  bolted,  traveling  back 
to  the  mountains.  Only  the  wounded  cow  remained, 
lying  up  to  recover;  we  heard  her  trumpet  and  nearly 
ran  on  her  once  or  twice  in  our  buffalo  hunts. 

The  buffaloes  kept  to  the  jungles  and  marshes  along 
the  river  by  day,  and  in  the  late  afternoon  we  used  to 
see  them  coming  out  to  feed  on  a  faraway  slope.  It 
was  fairly  inaccessible  and  the  only  way  to  get  a  buffalo 
seemed  to  be  to  go  in  the  jungle  after  it. 

That  is  not  recommended,  even  for  veterans.  The 
buffalo  is  a  cunning  hunter  himself.  Although  a  strict 
vegetarian — and  three  of  the  most  dangerous  African 
antagonists,  the  gorilla,  the  elephant  and  the  buffalo 
are  vegetarians — he  has  learned  to  recognize  man  as  a 
nondesirable  intrusion,  and  meet  his  hostilities  half  way. 

A  buffalo  will  charge,  not  as  readily  as  a  lion,  but 
with  as  devastating  an  effect.  I  have  talked  with  a 
man  whose  friend  was  literally  stamped  into  nothing- 
ness by  such  a  charge.  I  heard  of  several  other  hunters 
who  had  been  "blotted"  by  the  buffalo's  quiet  habit  of 
coming  back  stealthily,  after  the  herd  has  gone  on,  to 
investigate  the  alarm. 

Altogether  Mr.  Akeley  was  reluctant  to  take  in  the 
feminines,  so  he  and  Mr.  Bradley  started  alone  on 
December  twenty-first.  What  follows  is  told  by  Mr. 
Bradley,  for  it  was  his  hunt,  not  mine. 

"We  left  camp  at  a  quarter  of  two,  crossing  the  ravine 
to  the  plains,  then  descending  to  follow  the  cliff  for  a 
mile  overlooking  the  jungles  of  the  Ruindi  river.  The 
buffalo  had  not  been  seen  for  several  days.  In  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  we  went  down  the  steep  side  of  the 

206 


ELEPHANTS  AND  BUFFALO 

ravine  into  a  gulch-like  valley,  a  jungle  of  a  forest, 
where  we  came  upon  the  fresh  trail  of  a  single  buffalo, 
following  an  old,  well-worn  path. 

"The  jungle  was  so  dense  we  could  see  only  a  few  feet 
ahead  on  the  path.  We  took  three  boys  in  with  us,  two 
to  carry  our  guns  and  the  third  for  rain  coats.  After 
following  the  trail  up  the  gulch,  the  wind  being  towards 
us,  we  heard  a  sound  that  might  be  buffalo.  We  took 
our  guns — the  four  seventy-fives — from  our  boys,  and 
made  them  stay  back  at  a  good  distance  while  we  crept 
forward  cautiously,  step  by  step,  our  guns  on  ready. 

"After  ten  minutes  of  this  Mr.  Akeley  indicated  a 
spot  of  gray  through  the  tangled  leaves,  about  fifty  to 
seventy  feet  ahead.  The  grayness  of  the  spot  made  it 
seem  more  an  elephant  than  a  black  buffalo — but  the 
grayness  might  be  dried  mud.  I  looked  hard.  It  was 
the  back  we  saw.  I  thought  I  recognized  the  switching 
of  his  tail. 

"It  had  been  decided  that  if  we  saw  a  spot  of  black, 
any  glimpse  at  all  of  buffalo,  we  were  to  fire  and  take 
our  chances  about  getting  the  animal  or  inviting  a 
charge.  Maneuvering  to  a  good  position  for  a  shot 
might  mean  letting  the  animal  get  our  scent,  and  this 
lone  bull  was  one  of  a  wily  herd  that  had  been  shot  over 
often  enough  to  teach  him  to  take  no  chances.  At  the 
first  hint  of  our  presence  he  would  undoubtedly  get 
away  without  giving  us  a  chance  at  a  shot. 

"So  now  I  raised  my  gun,  took  aim  at  that  piece  of 
gray,  and  fired. 

"I  struck  the  hip ;  he  went  down  instantly  with  a  bel- 
low that  resounded  through  the  jungle.  Mr.  Akeley 

207 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

fired  right  after  me.  The  bull  went  on  bellowing  and 
crashed  out  of  sight  among  the  trees.  His  noises 
sounded  to  me  like  those  of  a  wounded  elephant — I 
thought  for  a  few  minutes  that  we  had  run  on  to  ele- 
phants instead  of  buffalo.  All  I  had  seen  was  that 
patch  of  gray. 

"Hearing  a  loud  crashing  and  thrashing  we  knelt  in 
the  path,  expecting  a  charge,  our  guns  reloaded  and 
aimed.  For  some  minutes  it  sounded  as  if  the  buffalo 
were  coming  back  our  way,  then  things  quieted. 
Everything  was  perfectly  still  for  a  few  seconds. 

"Another  crash  and  another  bellow.  We  waited  in 
this  position  for  fifteen  minutes,  minutes  in  which  there 
was  not  one  second  of  dullness.  We  kept  a  keen  out- 
look on  every  side,  for  the  buffalo  will  often  return  by 
another  path  to  turn  the  tables  on  his  hunter. 

"Presently  we  heard  a  succession  of  roars  and  then 
very  heavy  breathing  sounding  from  a  place  about 
twenty  feet  from  the  spot  where  we  had  first  seen  the 
buffalo.  We  were  then  sure  that  he  was  down  and 
probably  fatally  wounded. 

"We  moved  a  few  steps  forward  and  waited  cau- 
tiously for  another  ten  minutes,  all  the  while  hearing 
the  breaking  of  the  bushes,  the  heavy  breathing  and  the 
bellows. 

"Then  we  crept  up  and  Mr.  Akeley  fired  another  shot 
at  what  seemed  to  be  the  neck.  After  a  few  minutes 
we  took  another  path,  and  came  in  on  the  same  side, 
and  saw  a  big,  black  bull  buffalo  down  on  his  side  in  a 
watery  marsh.  He  was  very  much  alive,  so  I  put  a  shot 

208 


ELEPHANTS  AND   BUFFALO 

through  the  shoulder,  and  Mr.  Akeley  followed  with 
one  through  the  back  of  the  neck. 

"The  old  chap  straightened  out  and  died  immedi- 
ately. We  found  that  my  first  shot  had  broken  his  right 
hand  thigh,  shattering  every  bone  in  the  leg.  It  was  a 
fatal  shot  and  he  would  have  bled  to  death,  but  he  might 
have  held  out  in  strength  for  a  charge,  even  on  three 
legs,  if  we  had  not  hastened  to  finish  him. 

"He  was  a  big  old  bull,  the  scarred  veteran  of  many 
fights.  As  head  of  the  herd  he  had  held  his  position 
with  heavy  cost  to  any  who  disputed  it.  He  had  not 
gone  without  punishment  himself — his  right  horn  had 
been  broken  off  and  its  surface  polished  smooth,  his 
right  eye  was  gone,  and  he  bore  many  marks  of  battle. 
The  head  was  a  magnificent  trophy.  Under  the  gray 
mud  his  hide  was  black  and  heavily  haired.  I  should 
judge  he  weighed  over  two  thousand  pounds. 

"Until  one  comes  into  close  relation  with  an  African 
buffalo,  one  has  no  conception  of  the  power  and  size 
of  the  great  animal.  He  is  beautifully  formed;  there 
is  clear-limbed  grace  in  his  fine  lines  as  well  as  strength 
and  power;  he  has  virility  and  combativeness  in  every 
suggestion,  massivity  without  awkwardness.  The 
elephant  has  a  certain  antediluvian  grace;  the  buffalo 
has  a  smartness  of  finish,  an  air  hostilely  alert  and 
inimical. 

"It  was  then  three-thirty  and  it  would  be  two  hours 
before  the  porters  could  be  brought.  I  sent  a  note  back 
to  camp  to  have  the  porters  hurried  out,  then  we  set 
to  work  at  once  to  skin  the  head. 

"We  skinned  one  side  of  it,  then  realized  that  we 

209 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

would  have  to  cut  the  entire  head  off  to  get  it  done  be- 
fore dark.  There  was  no  time  to  wait  for  the  camera. 
While  Mr.  Akeley  was  skinning  the  head  I  cut  the  rest 
of  the  skin  off,  cutting  down  the  inside  of  the  front 
legs  and  the  back  of  the  hind  legs.  Before  I  had  gone 
a  foot  my  knife  was  dull  and  I  had  to  sharpen  and  re- 
sharpen  every  few  strokes. 

"It  was  a  huge  hide,  black  and  thick,  not  woolly  as 
our  American  bison,  but  covered  sparsely  with  coarse 
hair.  I  was  sorry  not  to  have  a  photograph  of  him, 
but  that  splendid  head,  mounted,  would  be  an  enduring 
trophy." 

One  day  after  Herbert's  encounter  with  this  bull 
we  saw  a  herd  of  buffalo  come  out  late  in  the  afternoon 
on  the  slopes  of  the  canyon  not  far  away  from  us.  We 
could  see  them  grazing  and  strolling  about,  and  with 
glasses  we  could  observe  them  minutely.  It  was  a  won- 
derful picture,  and  Mr.  Akeley  hurried  off  with  the 
motion  picture  camera  to  circle  the  plains  to  a  point 
above  them  and  then  descend.  We  saw  him  disappear 
from  sight  and,  knew  that  he  was  making  his  way 
through  bush  to  maneuver  for  a  position,  and  then 
suddenly  we  saw  the  herd  begin  to  leave. 

One  by  one  those  buffaloes  streaked  across  the  open 
space  and  vanished  in  the  forest  below,  a  massive 
horned  bull  being  the  last  of  all  to  disappear.  Some- 
thing had  given  the  alarm  just  as  the  camera  was  be- 
ing put  in  place,  so  one  of  the  rarest  pictures  in  the 
world,  superb  wild  creatures  in  a  rich  beauty  of  back- 
ground dissolved  without  a  film  record,  leaving  the  pho- 
tographer only  the  memory  and  the  exercise. 

210 


ELEPHANTS  AND  BUFFALO 

Three  times  after  that  the  four  of  us  went  into  the 
jungle  after  buffalo,  putting  in  nine  hours  a  day  up  and 
down  the  trails  that  wound  through  the  network  of 
thickets.  We  went  into  marshes  where  the  grass  closed 
over  our  heads  and  we  had  to  force  our  way  through  the 
tough  stalks;  we  skirted  pools  on  old  hippo  runs. 

Twice  we  heard  buffalo  without  seeing  them,  heard 
them  as  they  bolted  past  us,  unseen,  on  trails  screened 
by  thickets.  Once  we  thought  we  saw  them  when  we 
didn't,  and  fired — finding  we  had  been  cunningly  fooled 
by  shadowy  leaves.  And  once — once  when  we  had  given 
up  all  hope,  when  we  had  seen  the  marks  of  the  herd 
crossing  the  river  and  thought  that  all  the  herd  had  gone 
and  were  walking  along  a  path  we  felt  no  longer  event- 
ful— we  came  upon  them. 

I  saw  the  black  back  through  a  filigree  of  trees  at  my 
left;  I  raised  my  gun  and  pulled  the  trigger — and  the 
cartridge  failed  to  explode.  For  a  minute  I  thought  it 
was  a  bit  of  vine  that  jammed  the  trigger,  and  tore  at 
it  with  a  whispered  warning  to  Mr.  Akeley,  who  was 
just  ahead  of  me. 

He  had  heard  the  click  of  my  gun,  then  seen  the  buf- 
falo. He  fired,  but  just  as  the  herd  bolted.  I  flung  out 
that  dud  cartridge,  then  began  shooting ;  so  did  Martha, 
who  had  held  her  fire  to  give  me  first  shot,  but  the  buf- 
falo were  far  on  their  way.  Just  one  moment  of  relaxa- 
tion on  the  path  and  one  dud  cartridge  had  undone  nine 
hours  of  rigorous  care  and  stalking. 

It  was  a  typical  buffalo  day. 

Nine  hours  of  hard  work  and  one-naif  second  of  hard 
luck! 

211 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SANTA  IN  THE  JUNGLE 
ALICE  HAS  A  CONGO  CHRISTMAS 

THE  Ruindi  plains  had  been  reported  so  hot  and 
feverish  that,  as  I  said,  we  had  left  Alice  with  Miss  Hall 
at  Ruchuru,  but  as  soon  as  we  saw  the  Ruindi  we  real- 
ized that  its  reputation  had  merely  suffered,  like  so 
many  other  reputations  in  Africa,  and  succumbed  to 
slander,  and  that  it  was  no  more  unhealthy,  at  least  our 
particular  place  in  it,  than  a  Colorado  plateau. 

Hot,  it  certainly  was,  hunting  at  noon  under  the 
downpouring  rays  of  the  sun  a  few  miles  from  the 
equator,  hot  with  a  dry,  burning,  brazen  heat  that  made 
the  dream  of  tinkling  ice  in  a  glass  of  grape  juice — 
grape  juice  in  any  stage — an  irresistible  mockery  and 
the  mention  of  it  a  criminal  offense;  but  one  could  al- 
ways be  comfortable  in  our  tents  or  grass  houses,  even 
at  noon,  so  as  Christmas  approached  and  our  departure 
was  postponed,  we  sent  a  runner  in  to  Commissioner 
Van  de  Ghinste,  asking  him  to  try  to  find  a  white  escort 
to  send  out  with  Miss  Hall  and  Alice  to  reunite  the 
family. 

We  had  hope  that  the  agent  territorial  or  the  chef  de 
poste  might  be  abstracted  from  his  duties,  but  it  was 
not  a  strong  hope,  even  for  the  honorarium  we  were  only 
too  glad  to  offer,  so  we  were  tremendously  exhilarated 

212 


SANTA  IN  THE  JUNGLE 

when  a  runner  brought  the  news  that  "la  petite"  and 
Priscilla  Hall  would  be  sent  out  to  us  with  a  white 
escort. 

It  was  a  three-day  march  and  we  did  not  expect  them 
until  the  twenty-second,  but  on  the  twenty-first  the 
boys'  cry  of  "Toto  hapa!"  (baby  here!)  brought  me  out 
of  my  tent,  and  there,  across  the  plain,  flashed  the  green 
and  scarlet  of  the  "machila"  (the  hammock)  of  the 
Littlest  Explorer.  Through  the  glasses  we  caught  the 
dark  line  of  the  porters  and  then  the  gleam  of  a  robe — 
and  there  came  the  White  Father,  the  Father  Superior, 
gallantly  walking,  in  new  shoes,  too,  it  developed — with 
Priscilla  mounted  upon  his  donkey — and  a  donkey  is 
the  most  priceless  animal  in  the  Congo. 

In  this  wise  they  had  made  the  journey  in  two  days, 
the  only  difficulty  having  been  to  keep  Alice  in  her  ham- 
mock. She  always  loved  to  walk  with  the  rest,  though 
her  small  legs  could  not  keep  up  so  hurried  a  pace,  and 
as  fast  as  we  changed  porters  and  languages  she  in- 
variably learned  the  new  words  for  "Put  me  down"  and 
used  them  busily. 

But  though  Alice  made  Christmas  for  us,  the  problem 
remained  of  how  to  make  Christmas  for  Alice.  We 
were  a  month  behind  in  our  plans.  We  had  expected 
to  reach  Nairobi  in  Kenya  Colony,  as  British  East  Af- 
rica was  now  named,  by  Christmas,  and  now  in  Nairobi 
there  was  Christmas  mail  and  Christmas  packages  and 
stores  and  shops;  and  here  in  the  heart  of  Africa  we 
had  only  two  trivial  toys — long  cherished-for  emergen- 
cies— and  a  six-year-old's  unfaltering  trust  in  Santa 
Claus. 

213 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

Laboriously  she  spelled  out  her  letters  to  him,  detail- 
ing the  things  she  longed  for,  and  dismayedly  we  read 
them  to  each  other.  Then  diplomatically  we  began  to 
explain;  Santa  was  so  far  away.  .  .  .  Africa  had  no 
snow  for  his  sleigh.  .  .  .  The  packages  would  be  in 
Nairobi.  .  .  . 

But  Alice  would  have  none  of  that.  "He'll  get  as  far 
as  he  can  and  then  send  a  runner,"  she  announced,  and 
as  our  explanations  grew  more  pessimistic,  her  trust 
grew  more  passionately  clinging. 

"Oh,  Mummie,  let's  hang  up  stockings  anyway — and 
see  what  he  will  do!" 

We  hung  up  the  stockings  and  Santa  did  a  great  deal. 
It  was  the  most  exciting  Christmas  the  small  girl  re- 
membered. There  was  a  tree  on  the  breakfast  table  in 
the  grass  house,  which  the  boys  had  lined  with  jungle 
green,  a  tree  trimmed  with  scarlet  kindergarten  paper 
and  bright  with  tallow  candles  shining  away  among  the 
piles  of  packages — and  the  stocking  was  bulging. 

There  was  Daddy's  long-hidden  candy,  and  there  was 
some  of  Martha's  modeling  clay,  and  Martha's  own  gold 
chain  and  locket,  and  Mummie's  sacred  pastels,  and 
home-made  painting  books  and  picture  books  and  story 
books,  and  ivory  bracelets,  and  elephant's  hair  brace- 
lets made  by  Uncle  Akeley,  and  there  were  native  stools 
and  baskets  from  Priscilla,  who  had  been  preparing  a 
most  bountiful  Christmas  for  every  one — and  we  all 
managed  to  produce  and  exchange  a  great  many  sur- 
prising and  amusing  gifts. 

Later  another  runner  came  from  Santa  Claus — 
this  time  by  way  of  Luofu,  where  the  Father  Superior 

214 


SANTA  IN  THE  JUNGLE 

was  now  with  Monsieur  Flamand,  the  Administrator 
of  the  Ruindi,  bringing  gifts  from  them  both  to  all  of 
us,  rare  spears  and  unusual  ornaments  and  feathers, 
baskets  and  bells. 

The  boys  entered  heartily  into  the  occasion.  Each 
one  of  them,  down  to  the  cook  and  the  last  grinning 
little  helper  in  a  dirty  tea  towel,  presented  himself  at 
each  tent  on  the  first  call  for  hot  water,  each  with  an 
offering,  a  cluster  of  the  red-gold  flowers  of  the  place 
thrust  in  a  can  or  a  bottle.  By  the  time  we  were  through 
dressing  every  tent  looked  like  a  flower  show,  and  the 
boys  were  expectantly  awaiting  the  returns. 

Previous  counsel  had  decided  upon  a  lump  sum  to 
each  boy  from  us  all.  It  was  given,  and  the  explanation 
that  it  was  from  us  all  was  harped  upon,  but  the  boys 
promptly  pursued  every  individual  of  us,  yearning  vol- 
ubly for  tokens.  It  was  our  continual  experience  that 
a  personal  gift,  however  slight,  was  much  more  appre- 
ciated by  the  native  than  any  collective  generosity. 

We  spent  Christmas  day  in  a  vain  nine  hours  of  buf- 
falo hunting.  On  the  way  to  the  jungles,  crossing  the 
plains,  we  had  frequent  glimpses  of  wild  pig.  These 
were  the  famous  wart  hog  variety,  and  anything  wartier 
and  boggier  than  one  of  these  savage  boars  cannot  be 
imagined — "Mad  Pork,"  as  one  Belgian  attempting  to 
speak  English  had  called  them.  Several  times  we  tried 
to  stalk  them,  but  they  are  wary  and  trotted  off  at  a  gait 
that  without  apparent  effort  took  them  past  running 
antelope ;  when  they  really  stretched  their  short  legs  and 
ran  they  were  nothing  but  a  streak  of  dark.  Once  I 
worked  my  way  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  bush  to 

215 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

bush  after  four  pigs,  and  then  stumbled  upon  a  little 
reed  buck,  who  sprang  off  with  a  whistle  of  alarm  and 
sprang,  of  course,  in  the  direction  of  the  pigs.  They 
saw  him  running,  and  began  to  trot,  looking  cannily 
back;  I  risked  a  shot  and  the  hunt  possibilities  were 
over;  the  pig  was  about  a  block  ahead  of  the  bullet. 

They  are  great  delicacies,  esteemed  by  whites  and 
natives  and  lions.  We  had  an  excellent  roast  from  one 
Mr.  Akeley  killed.  The  warts  that  give  the  animal  its 
name  were  very  pronounced  in  this  specimen,  two  pairs, 
one  below  the  eye  and  one  about  the  mouth,  and  these 
huge  warts,  the  long-pointed  ears,  the  straggling,  bris- 
tling bunches  of  black  hairs  on  top  of  the  head  and  on 
the  sides  of  the  cheeks  and  the  gleaming  white  curve 
of  his  tusks  gave  the  boar  an  inimitable  air  of  brisk 
ferocity.  When  he  goes  into  a  burrow  he  goes  in  back- 
wards, so  as  to  present  the  intimidating  tusks  to  the 
pursuer.  Wild  pigs  can,  however,  be  tamed,  and  make 
pets  as  safe  as  gazelles ;  at  Kigoma,  on  Lake  Tangany- 
ika, we  had  seen  two  of  different  species  kept  as  pets. 
Wilhelmina  had  pushed  her  unhandsome  nose  to  one 
side  manipulating  the  door  of  her  stockade,  adding  a 
curious  twist  to  her  appearance ;  when  she  was  drinking 
her  portion  of  milk  from  a  bottle  the  effect  was  enough 
to  make  one  cross-eyed. 

Three  days  after  Christmas,  the  twenty-eighth  of  De- 
cember, we  abandoned  our  hope  of  another  buffalo,  and 
started  to  march  back  across  the  plains  to  Ruchuru.  We 
had  received  word  from  the  East  Coast,  sent  in  by  tele- 
graph and  telephone  and  then  by  a  pair  of  black  run- 
ners, that  a  boat  would  leave  Mombasa,  in  British  East 

216 


SANTA  IN  THE  JUNGLE 

Africa,  some  time  about  the  last  of  January  or  early 
in  February,  and  we  were  trying  to  make  the  boat.  In 
the  old  days,  before  the  war,  boats  had  regular  sailings 
from  Mombasa,  and  could  be  depended  upon  to  feel 
some  responsibility  towards  their  dates,  but  now  the 
only  way  to  get  out  of  Africa  was  to  get  to  the  coast 
near  the  time  when  a  boat  was  expected,  lay  in  a  supply 
of  literature,  and  wait  until  that  boat  or  another  put 
in  at  the  port.  This  continued  the  state  of  suspense  in 
which  all  traveling  was  accomplished — it  was  certainly 
the  Dark  Continent  in  this  respect.  We  knew  that, 
lacking  definite  information,  we  did  not  dare  lose  a  day 
because  that  day  might  cost  us  a  boat. 

So  we  bade  farewell  to  the  plains,  and  took  our  last 
look  at  grazing  herds  of  antelopes,  shadowy  shapes  in 
the  morning  gray,  their  horns  glinting  in  the  level  rays 
of  morning,  and  commenced  the  long  trail  out  of  the 
interior. 

Three  days  brought  us  back  the  familiar  way  through 
Mai  ja  Moto,  the  streams  of  boiling  water,  and  along 
the  Ruchuru  River  to  Ruchuru,  where  fresh  porters 
were  already  waiting  to  take  us  out  of  the  Congo.  For 
two  days  camp  was  a  furious  activity  of  packing,  casing 
the  gorilla  skins  in  waxed  cloths,  and  winding  the  skele- 
tons with  straw,  listing  the  trophies  and  ivory  for  the 
obliging  customs,  and  seeing  to  the  sealing  of  the  guns, 
for  we  were  going  east  into  British  territory,  where  we 
had  no  license  to  hunt. 

The  Belgian  officials  were  more  than  kind  in  helping 
us  off;  they  were  amused  at  our  lack  of  time,  the  com- 
modity which  is  so  universal  in  Africa,  but  their  hos- 

217 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

pitality  did  everything  in  their  power.  We  were  very 
much  impressed  by  the  fine  type  of  official  we  found 
everywhere  in  the  Congo,  by  the  sense  of  responsibility 
towards  the  native  and  the  seriousness  of  their  coloniza- 
tion. Far  from  perpetrating  atrocities,  the  Belgian 
Government  is  now  considered  to  err  on  the  side  of 
leniency,  favoring  the  black  against  the  white. 

Toward  us  their  hospitality  was  the  sort  that  would 
have  put  the  early  days  of  the  open-hearted  West  to 
shame,  and  never  in  any  dealing,  official  or  business 
relation,  was  there  the  slightest  attempt  to  profit  by  us. 

We  had  an  instance  of  the  scrupulousness  of  their 
attitude  at  Kivu.  There  we  had  been  allowed  the  gov- 
ernment boat  for  an  excursion  to  the  lava  fields  if  we 
would  pay  the  price  of  the  gasoline.  We  paid  the  pre- 
sented bill  without  remark,  for  the  gasoline  cost  did  not 
seem  excessive  for  the  heart  of  Africa.  Nearly  two 
months  later  the  black  runner  brought  in  a  letter  with 
some  hundred  francs  from  Kivu — the  chef  de  poste  had 
discovered  that  the  gasoline  had  been  billed  to  them  at 
a  less  price  and  sent  on  to  us  our  benefit  of  the  reduction. 

Our  next  experience  with  gasoline,  in  Uganda,  was 
less  heartening. 

The  last  day  of  the  year  1921  was  consecrated  to 
packing  and  good-bys,  our  last  social  occasion  in  the 
Congo  being  tea  with  Madame  Van  de  Ghinste,  the  wife 
of  the  Commissioner.  They  had  a  very  attractive  brick 
house,  reminding  me  of  a  bungalow  in  California,  with 
a  lovely  veranda  whose  great  charm  to  us  was  the  lack 
of  screens  and  glass.  Roses  bloomed  in  bowls  every- 
where about  it  and  the  coolness  of  the  shade  was  de- 

218 


SANTA  IN  THE  JUNGLE 

licious  after  the  heat  of  the  afternoon  sun  in  which  we 
had  been  walking.  We  found  everywhere  in  Africa 
that  at  our  altitude  a  thatched  roof  gave  delicious  cool- 
ness even  in  midday  heat ;  we  knew  nothing  there  of  the 
sweltering,  inescapable  heat  that  American  summers 
can  give. 

Alice's  most  poignant  farewell  was  with  the  Van  de 
Ghinste  monkey,  little  Camembert.  At  every  post  or 
camping  place  she  had  found  some  pet,  some  Mission 
cat  or  native  dog  or  monkey  and  taken  it  to  her  heart 
and  arms,  and  to  all  our  remonstrances  anent  certain 
fleas,  "It's  worth  it,"  Alice  would  say  stoutly.  I  could 
have  got  her  a  monkey  for  her  own,  but  a  monkey  is  a 
serious  responsibility,  not  to  be  undertaken  lightly  by 
any  one  who  knew  Mrs.  Akeley's  experience  with  that 
sensitive,  clinging,  babylike  J.  T.  of  hers.  And  to  any 
one  who  has  known  the  little  creatures  in  the  freedom 
of  their  jungle  trees  the  very  sight  of  one,  captive,  shiv- 
ering, apprehensive,  chained  to  some  lonely  perch,  is  a 
sorry  thing.  Their  sensitiveness  makes  them  capable 
of  keen  suffering,  and  no  country  can  call  itself  civilized 
that  allows  one  to  be  jerked  about  the  streets,  whipped 
to  perform  by  some  organ  grinder,  or  boxed  in  tiny 
cages  in  a  Zoo. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ACROSS  UGANDA 

OUT  FROM  THE  INTERIOR;  THE  END  OF  A  THOUSAND- 

MILE  WALK 


YEAR'S  morning,  1922,  we  started  to  march  out 
of  the  Congo,  leading  our  two  hundred  porters  east 
towards  the  British  protectorate  of  Uganda  on  a  way 
that  could  only  be  vaguely  defined  by  the  Belgians.  It 
was  the  way  used  by  runners  with  the  East  Coast  Mail, 
but  it  happened  that  not  one  of  our  porters  had  been 
over  it  before. 

We  left  Ruchuru  on  a  native  path  that  wound  down 
between  banana  plantations  and  then,  after  half  an 
hour,  started  to  climb  on  harsh  outcroppings  of  lava 
rock,  over  ever  higher  and  higher  mountains.  Some- 
where in  those  mountains  that  day  we  crossed  the  east- 
ern frontier  of  the  Congo  and  passed  into  British 
Uganda,  but  when  and  where  it  was,  we  had  no  idea. 
We  went  on  forever  in  search  of  water  by  which  to 
camp.  The  country  was  wild  and  solitary,  no  villages 
on  the  way  and  but  very  few  natives  to  be  met.  These 
few  told  us  that  there  was  water  farther  on,  so  on  we 
went,  and  at  last,  late  in  the  afternoon,  a  blue  green 
glimmer  in  a  far-away  hollow  made  us  believe  that  we 
were  approaching  a  lake,  but  when  we  reached  it  we 
found  that  the  lake  was  a  field  of  peas,  whose  blue  green 

220 


ACROSS  UGANDA 

foliage  among  the  darker  African  green  produced  an 
extraordinary  illusion  of  water.  On  the  other  side  of 
that  field  we  found  our  water  in  a  mud  hole  and  our 
camp  by  it  could  only  be  designated  as  Somewhere  in 
Uganda. 

For  the  first  time  in  our  safari  experience  water  was 
both  scarce  and  bad.  Before  we  used  it  that  night  Her- 
bert himself  bailed  that  mud  hole  to  the  bottom,  allow- 
ing no  black  within  it,  and  then  we  boiled  the  water, 
as  we  always  did  when  we  did  not  have  spring  water, 
and  in  addition  put  in  alum.  We  carried  six  loads  of 
water  on  with  us,  in  case  conditions  were  worse  ahead. 

Next  morning  we  were  up  by  starlight,  breakfasted 
by  candlelight  and  were  off  at  the  first  rays  of  the  six 
o'clock  sun.  Up  and  down  and  around  the  mountains 
we  wound  on  roads  so  excellent  that  our  bicycles  were 
a  real  assistance.  A  great  deal  of  work  was  done  on 
those  roads  during  the  war  under  white  supervision,  and 
for  hundreds  of  years  before  that  the  natives  had  main- 
tained them,  for  Uganda  had  a  highly  organized  gov- 
ernment before  the  advent  of  the  whites  and  roads  were 
a  matter  of  pride  to  the  old  kings. 

We  met  more  natives  that  day,  and  now  instead  of 
shaking  hands  with  a  sultan  he  clapped  his  hands  in 
apparent  delight  at  sight  of  us,  and  any  one  we  met 
along  the  way  promptly  squatted  down  and  clapped 
vigorously  as  we  went  by.  As  we  wobbled  along  on 
some  of  the  uneven  ridges  of  the  roads  to  the  sound  of 
the  clapping,  we  felt  as  if  we  were  a  trick  riding  act 
being  applauded  and  that  something  in  the  nature  of 
an  encore  was  expected  of  us.  But  it  is  extraordinary 

221 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

how  soon  one  becomes  accustomed  to  this  royal  recep- 
tion. When  we  met  an  Arab  trader,  striding  through 
the  country  in  his  white  nightgown-like  shirt,  called 
Kansu,  his  goods  on  the  heads  of  a  few  blacks  trotting 
after  him,  and  he  merely  salaamed  or  said  "Jamba" 
(greeting),  we  felt  defrauded.  There  was  something 
very  soothing  in  the  good  old  reverential  ways. 

Inadvertently,  we  did  two  days'  marches  in  one  that 
day  through  abundant  misinformation  furnished  us  by 
one  of  these  traders  and  some  stray  natives,  and  we  were 
ten  hours  on  the  march,  with  lime  juice  and  crackers  on 
the  way  for  lunch.  It  was  astonishing  to  see  how  all 
these  irregularities  of  hours  and  food  agreed  with  Alice. 
She  throve  on  them.  She  had  peaked  and  pined  our 
last  year  at  home  on  all  the  sensible  routine  of  her 
nursery  fare.  But  here,  wakened  rudely  into  a  cold 
world  at  three  or  four  in  the  morning  when  we  were  on 
march,  breakfasting  on  prunes  and  a  monotony  of 
cereal  and  tinned  milk  and  tough  toast  and  jam,  tucked 
into  a  hammock  with  her  doll  and  a  book  and  water 
bottle  and  canvas  bag  containing  a  cold  lunch — bananas, 
crackers,  chocolate,  and  chicken — and  joggled  along 
all  day  on  the  shoulders  of  the  men,  dining  at  what- 
ever hour  we  dined,  four  or  six  or  seven,  on  whatever 
we  had,  generally  chicken  and  rice  on  march  and 
more  crackers  and  jam  and  cheese,  she  was  as  hearty 
and  healthy  as  a  child  could  be.  She  never  had  an 
instant's  illness.  Not  a  cold,  not  even  a  sneeze.  Life 
was  a  continual  excursion,  an  everlasting  picnic.  She 
was  tired,  sometimes;  we  were  all  tired  sometimes,  for 
from  choice  we  would  never  have  traveled  as  fast  and 

222 


THE  ACACIA  Is  FANTASTICALLY  FLAT  TOPPED 


[page  220] 


BUYING  BARK  CLOTH  BENEATH  THE  EUPHORBIA  OR  CANDELABRA  THEE 

[page  220] 


THE  GOLDEN  CRESTED  KAVIRONDO  CBANE 


[page  223] 


FAMILY  -SCENE   AT   LAKE   BUXYONI 


[page  223] 


ACROSS  UGANDA 

hard  as  we  did,  but  with  her  it  was  the  healthy  tiredness 
of  a  little  gypsy. 

We  climbed  higher  and  higher  among  the  mountains 
that  day  on  a  road  that  at  times  became  rudely  con- 
structed steps ;  up  and  up  till  space  seemed  to  flow  round 
us  like  a  sea.  It  was  the  dry  season  and  the  air  had 
lost  the  crystal  clarity  of  the  rains ;  a  haze  of  blue  veiled 
every  perspective.  Great  mountain  ranges  lay  lightly 
as  gauze  against  the  horizon;  azure  gleams  of  rivers  and 
lakes  sparkled  from  the  shadowy  hollows.  Far  to  the 
southwest  the  dim  peaks  of  the  Sabinio  group  and  old 
Visoke  lifted  above  a  floating  web  of  gray  lace  clouds. 

We  camped  that  night  at  Behungi,  a  mountain  top 
eight  thousand  feet  in  elevation,  where  a  clean  little 
grass  rest  house  saved  us  from  putting  up  the  tents,  and 
we  slept  late  next  morning — as  late  as  five  o'clock.  I 
could  remember  when  five  o'clock  seemed  an  hour  at 
which  you  got  up  if  the  house  were  on  fire  or  the  baby 
cried,  but  those  days  were  gone  forever. 

Down  went  the  wide  road  that  morning,  and  then  up 
again,  winding  along  the  mountainside,  through  forests 
of  bamboo  and  marshes  of  papyrus,  past  marvelously 
beautiful  country,  and  then  the  third  night  we  came  to 
Lake  Bunyoni. 

I  still  think  that  Kivu  is  the  most  beautiful  lake  in 
the  world,  but  if  there  were  another  lake  more  beautiful 
than  Kivu,  Bunyoni  would  be  that  one.  It  is  a  fairy 
of  a  lake,  with  indented  shores  fringed  with  papyrus 
and  bamboo  and  lotus — the  only  place  in  Africa  where 
those  three  meet.  In  and  out  the  papyrus  flashed  birds 
that  seemed  a  thousand  colors,  blue  and  purple,  gold 

223 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  scarlet,  black  and  orange;  white  ducks  drifted  in 
flocks  upon  the  water  like  white  clouds;  and  all  along 
the  shore  ran  the  purple  line  of  the  lotus  of  the  Nile  with 
fringed  petals  and  a  golden  heart  radiating  a  heady 
sweetness. 

It  was  the  southern  shores  of  this  lake  that  had  been 
depopulated  by  the  pygmy  raids  from  the  forests,  and 
no  natives  lived  there  now,  but  on  the  western  shore, 
where  we  were,  were  clusters  of  grass  huts  so  pictur- 
esquely perched  on  the  highlands  that  it  was  hard  not 
to  believe  in  the  artistic  feeling  of  the  builders.  But 
inaccessibility  in  case  of  war  had  been  the  inspiration. 

We  had  sent  for  canoes  and  the  men  paddled  along 
the  shores  sending  out  ringing  calls  until  a  flotilla  of 
twenty-seven  was  assembled.  The  canoes  were  dug  out 
logs,  and  the  paddles  had  long,  straight  handles  and 
heart-shaped  blades.  To  maintain  your  balance  in  one 
of  those  dugouts  forbade  changing  even  your  mind. 
We  sent  most  of  our  goods  across  the  lake  that  after- 
noon with  a  boy  to  guard  them,  and  then  spent  the  night 
at  the  rest  house,  on  a  tiny  point  of  land  cut  across  by 
a  line  of  black  euphorbia  trees.  There  was  something 
theatric  in  the  beauty  of  that  camp ;  those  dark  dramatic 
trees  against  a  backdrop  of  pale,  shimmering  water  had 
an  artistry  so  palpable,  so  evocative  of  mood,  that  one 
waited  for  the  tuning  of  violins  and  the  poignant  sweet- 
ness of  music.  Tristan  and  Isolde  .  .  .  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  .  .  . 

The  next  morning  was  gray  and  overcast,  and  our 
paddlers  were  so  slow  in  coming  that  we  felt  they  were 
going  to  fail  the  rendezvous,  but  eventually  the  canoes 

224 


ACROSS  UGANDA 

came  stealing  in  through  the  soft  mists  and  took  over 
the  rest  of  our  two  hundred  loads  and  all  of  our  two 
hundred  porters.  Then  we  had  a  desperately  hard  time 
getting  a  tribe  whose  only  knowledge  of  money  was  of 
rupees  to  accept  Belgian  Congo  francs  in  payment.  We 
had  a  row  that  would  have  put  the  Tower  of  Babel  to 
shame,  but  finally  we  lined  up  the  disputants,  put  the 
despised  francs  in  each  fist  and  shut  the  resisting 
fingers.  Then  something  in  the  actual  feel  of  those 
francs  operated  soothingly  and  assuaged  the  racket. 
Then  we  tried  to  buy  a  paddle,  at  first  in  vain,  but  after 
one  man  sold  his  the  rest  all  crowded  around,  and  we 
had  all  that  we  wanted. 

Only  one  man  would  have  none  of  the  francs.  He 
had  otter  skins  for  sale  that  I  wanted  for  a  coat  for 
Alice,  really  lovely  skins,  much  thicker  haired  than  one 
would  have  imagined  an  otter  in  that  climate  to  be,  and 
I  had  struggled  to  bargain  with  him  the  night  before. 
He  wanted  either  rupees  or  cloth,  the  white  "American" 
cloth  that  the  Arabs  have  made  fashionable  for  gowns. 
I  had  no  rupees  and  no  cloth.  I  had  a  French  muslin 
nightgown,  but  that  was  too  sheer  for  his  needs ;  he  con- 
sidered it  seriously,  impressed,  hesitant,  but  judgment 
went  against  it;  he  wanted  stouter  stuff.  So  I  per- 
suaded him  to  take  his  skins  and  come  with  us  to 
Kabale,  the  first  English  post,  where  at  the  administra- 
tive Boma  of  the  Englishman  I  would  give  him  his 
rupees. 

All  we  could  learn  of  the  way  was  that  somewhere 
after  Lake  Bunyoni,  two  days  or  two  hours  according  to 
differing  informants,  we  should  come  to  Kabale.  For 

225 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

an  hour  after  we  left  the  lotus-fringed  shores  of  the  lake, 
Martha,  Herbert  and  I,  and  Mablanga  with  Alice 
cycled  rapidly  down  a  road  on  which  we  passed  increas- 
ing numbers  of  natives  in  the  white  gowns  of  Arab  fash- 
ion, and  at  last,  on  a  height  before  us,  we  saw  a  cluster 
of  roofs  and  the  fluttering  colors  of  the  Union  Jack. 
This  was  Kabale. 

On  one  hill  was  the  Church  of  England  mission,  on 
another  the  Mission  of  the  White  Fathers,  and  on  the 
elevation  between  them  the  government  Boma  and  the 
bungalows  of  the  officials.  Up  the  hill  and  into  the 
Boma  we  marched,  dusty,  khaki-clad  figures,  greeted  by 
very  astonished,  white-clad  Englishmen.  We  had  sent 
a  runner  ahead  asking  for  porters  to  be  in  readiness, 
but  nothing  in  our  mention  of  a  party  of  six  had  pre- 
pared them  for  this  feminine  invasion  from  the  interior 
of  the  Congo,  and  the  presence  of  a  little  six-year-old 
girl,  carried  along  on  the  wheel  of  her  boy  with  a  doll  at 
her  side  was  distinctly  unexpected. 

Commissioner  Adams  and  Captain  Persse  divided 
our  party  for  luncheon  and  in  our  dusky  khaki  and  mud- 
stained  boots  we  entered  a  bungalow  California-deep  in 
roses  and  sat  down  to  luncheon  amid  the  chintz  and 
china  and  silver  and  crystal  of  old  England.  Martha, 
Alice,  and  I  lunched  with  Commissioner  Adams  in  a 
home  from  which  the  young  and  lovely  mistress  had 
been  taken  just  two  weeks  before.  A  little  baby  boy 
only  two  months  old  was  being  cared  for  at  the  English 
Mission  until  the  Commissioner's  sister  could  come  out 
from  England.  At  the  table  with  us  was  the  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Province,  Mr.  Cooper,  a  thin,  bronzed  man 

226 


WAITING  FOR  CANOES  ON  LAKE  BUNYONI 


[page  226] 


NATIVE  DUGOUTS  ON  BUNYONI 


[page  226] 


THE   TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA,   IN   UGANDA 


[page  233] 


THE  END  OF  SAFARI 


[page  233] 


ACROSS  UGANDA 

of  many  years'  service ;  he  told  me  that  in  England  were 
his  motherless  twins  of  five  and  a  half  that  he  had  not 
seen  for  nearly  three  years  now.  He  looked  at  Alice 
and  estimated  how  his  little  girl  would  look.  At  every 
post,  Belgian  or  British,  that  price  of  empire  was 
brought  home  to  us. 

After  luncheon  we  scurried  for  our  tents  and  hot 
baths  and  the  white  raiment  in  our  "air-tights"  and  paid 
off  the  porters  and  then  began  on  the  formalities  of 
customs  inspection.  The  formalities  were  solemn  ones 
here;  and  we  made  innumerable  lists,  and  estimates  of 
everything  left  in  our  supplies  to  the  last  prune.  At 
intervals  I  sent  a  boy  out  for  the  native  with  the  otter 
skins,  who  seemed  to  have  melted  from  Kabale  before  I 
could  secure  my  rupees;  we  discovered  that  he  brought 
his  skins  to  the  Boma,  the  white  man's  place  of  adminis- 
tration, and  finding  a  visiting  white  man  who  wanted 
skins,  had  promptly  sold  them  and  retired.  Captain 
Persse  saved  the  day — and  Alice's  coat — for  he  kindly 
sent  out  and  had  other  skins  brought  in  for  me. 

The  porters  for  whom  we  had  sent  a  runner  ahead 
were  ready  for  us  and  next  morning,  after  the  last  cus- 
toms list  was  checked  over,  we  sent  them  off  with  a 
headman,  and  we  followed  at  one  o'clock  after  more 
sociability.  After  the  first  downward  plunge  of  the 
road  we  could  ride  our  wheels,  and  the  fact  that  the 
march  was  estimated  at  from  sixteen  to  twenty-six 
miles  did  not  daunt  us. 

For  six  days  we  went  on  good,  red  gravel  roads 
through  a  very  beautiful  country,  mountainous  though 
with  none  of  the  great  single  peaks  that  we  had  grown 

227 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

accustomed  to  in  our  M'fumbiro  friends,  but  a  con- 
tinual succession  of  ranges  and  ridges  and  valleys.  The 
slopes  were  deforested,  firewood  was  scarce  and  water 
was  scarcer,  and  we  guarded  our  precious  pails  of  it  in 
the  tents,  as  the  boys  used  it  with  the  same  prodigality 
as  if  the  land  were  flowing  with  it.  Their  unconcern 
when  they  knew  the  facts  in  the  case  as  well  as  we  did 
was  a  marvelous  application  of  the  take-no-thought-f  or- 
the-morrow  admonition. 

At  Lubando,  where  water  was  scarcest,  I  saw  a  little 
black  tent  boy,  the  "boy"  of  our  Jim,  calmly  empty  out 
one  of  the  two  pails  of  jealously  hoarded  water  in  order 
to  use  the  pail  to  stand  on  to  arrange  the  bed  nets ! 

We  had  heard  that  there  was  water  five  miles  away 
and  we  thrust  that  empty  pail  handle  into  his  hand  and 
sent  him  forth  to  verify  the  rumor. 

Natives  everywhere  had  been  eager  for  "dower" 
(medicine),  but  on  this  march  they  were  simply  clam- 
orous and  we  could  never  get  settled  in  camp  an  after- 
noon before  the  procession  of  sultans  and  cohorts  and 
private  citizens  would  begin  to  trickle  in  and  come  to 
attention  before  the  tents. 

"Nataka  dower,  Mamma"  (want  medicine,  Mother) 
was  the  invariable  request  to  me,  accompanied  by  illus- 
trative showings  of  scratches  and  ulcers  and  rubbings 
of  the  stomach  and  various  seats  of  pain.  For  really 
serious  cases  we  consulted  the  medicine  book  and  Mr. 
Akeley's  experience,  but  in  general  our  remedies  did 
not  vary  much  and  our  prescription  rule  was  simple — 
we  gave  a  chief  three  times  as  much  of  anything  as  we 
gave  a  minion. 

228 


ACROSS  UGANDA 

I  drew  the  line  at  wives.  When  they  began  on  the 
symptoms  of  the  dear  ones  at  home  I  said  "Kwaheri" 
(Good-by),  for  the  dear  ones  were  unlimited.  Cattle 
and  wives  were  a  sultan's  wealth;  cattle  were  a  luxury, 
but  wives  were  an  asset,  for  the  wives  worked. 

A  thrifty  citizen  could  acquire  several  wives  in  the 
course  of  time,  but  a  really  thriving  sultan  would  have 
a  lot  of  them  scattered  about  his  villages.  The  customs 
varied  extremely  from  tribe  to  tribe. 

The  great  struggle  of  the  missionaries,  Protestant 
and  Catholic,  is  to  make  the  natives  accept  the  monog- 
amous marriage.  When  they  have  been  successful  the 
superfluous  women  have  created  a  new  problem — and 
often  a  new  class — abandoned  ladies  in  every  sense  of 
the  word.  Mohammedanism,  with  its  plural  marriages, 
has  a  tremendous  advantage.  In  the  old  days  the  tribal 
standards  of  morality  were  high — at  least  the  execution 
of  the  laws  was  rigorous — but  along  the  white  man's 
way  the  natives  have  acquired  habits  that  certainly 
savor  of  promiscuity.  The  boy  that  in  his  native  village 
would  buy  a  wife  and  keep  house  with  her,  here  strolled 
into  the  outposts  or  the  towns,  flirted,  made  indiscrim- 
inate and  highly  successful  love,  and  strolled  out  again. 
.  .  .  And  sometimes  the  white  man,  in  the  lonelier 
places,  made  love.  I  have  seen  more  than  one  strange 
safari  streaking  its  way  across  the  solitudes,  unmindful 
of  the  glasses  trained  upon  it — porters,  cook,  boys,  a 
white  man  in  his  chair  and  at  the  end  a  flutter  of  red 
calico  that  said,  "There  she  goes."  Many  an  old  timer 
in  the  wilds,  losing  the  hope  of  return  or  the  compan- 

229 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

ionship  of  his  own  kind,  solaces  himself  with  what  the 
savage  land  offers. 

No  one  will  ever  write  a  "Butterfly"  about  those  little 
girls.  They  lack  the  soft,  silken  stuff  of  romance.  They 
are  impudent  little  episodes,  smart,  giggling,  un- 
ashamed. I  don't  imagine  one  ever  died  of  a  broken 
heart.  I  don't  imagine  a  man  would  die  for  love  of  one. 
But  I  knew  of  a  man  that  married  one — he  had  a 
quixotic  sense  of  responsibility  toward  a  coming  cafe 
au  lait  generation — and  sent  a  bullet  through  his  head 
the  year  after.  I  know,  too,  of  other  cases  where  a 
father  has  sent  his  illegitimate  mulatto  girl  to  Europe 
for  an  education. 

Near  Kabale  I  heard  a  very  dramatic  story  of  a 
native  woman.  In  Rukiga  country  the  native  tribes, 
the  Batiga,  were  overrun  by  the  Baganda,  whom  they 
hated.  The  Batiga  had  always  been  divided  by  petty 
jealousies  and  feuds,  but  at  last,  in  this  common  hate, 
they  held  together.  They  set  a  night.  That  night  a 
knife  was  to  go  home  through  the  heart  of  all  the  Ba- 
ganda. Now  those  Baganda  men  had  Batiga  wives, 
who  were  the  mothers  of  their  children,  and  those  wives 
knew  that  plot,  but  not  a  woman  warned  them — not  a 
woman  but  one. 

That  one  must  have  sat  a  long  while  by  her  fire 
watching  her  sleeping  husband.  At  last  she  waked 
him,  swore  him  to  secrecy  and  told.  He  fled  like  a 
shadow  down  the  road  to  safety,  and  like  another 
shadow,  unseen  of  him,  she  followed  after.  His  way 
went  by  a  hut  to  which  a  path  branched  off.  It  was  his 

230 


ACROSS  UGANDA 

brother's  hut,  and  the  man  stopped,  hesitated,  and  then 
swerved  towards  it.  The  woman  sprang  upon  him  from 
the  shadows  and  her  knife  went  through  his  back. 
There  was  not  a  sound  to  give  warning.  ...  Him  she 
would  have  saved,  not  his  people.  .  .  .  She  sells  corn 
now,  a  worn  old  woman  of  thirty  years.  .  .  .  Hard  to 
re-create  from  that  flabby  flesh  the  fierce  young  thing 
whose  swift  leap  cost  her  son  his  father's  life. 

On  January  10  we  reached  Mbarara,  in  Ankole,  a 
British  post  of  two  families,  where  we  had  arranged 
for  automobiles  to  meet  us,  sent  out  from  Kampala,  a 
hundred  and  eighty  miles  away.  Seven  cars  came  for 
us,  trucks  and  four  five-passenger  touring  cars,  Reos, 
Dodges,  and  Fords.  One  good  truck  could  have  held 
our  loads,  but  the  bridges  were  so  frail  that  light  loads 
had  to  be  used. 

Here  we  paid  off  our  porters,  the  cook  and  all  the 
tent  boys  except  the  three  from  Elizabethville  whom  we 
were  to  take  on  with  us  to  the  coast  and  return  to  Eliza- 
bethville via  Dar  Es  Salaam.  We  saw  the  long  line  of 
blacks  start  down  the  way  back  to  the  interior  with  a 
keen  pang  of  regret.  The  old  days  with  them  were  gone. 
Our  walking  was  over.  We  had  walked  a  thousand 
miles  in  all,  marching  and  hunting,  over  plains  and  up 
and  down  mountains,  and  some  of  those  mountain  miles, 
we  felt,  ought  to  count  as  two. 

We  did  the  next  hundred  and  eighty  miles  in  two 
days  and  then,  at  Kampala,  we  waited  two  weeks  for 
the  last  car,  which  had  broken  down  and  had  to  be  sent 
out  for  and  brought  in.  It  was  of  course  the  car  with 

231 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

the  gorilla  skins  and  the  things  without  which  we  could 
not  leave.  At  our  former  pace  of  fifteen  miles  a  day 
we  could  have  marched  the  goods  in,  in  less  time — and 
those  seven  cars  for  two  days  cost  us  twenty-four  hun- 
dred dollars. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA 

SIXTY  YEARS  AGO  AND  Now;  THE  TOURIST  TRAIL 

AGAIN 

KAMPALA,  built  on  seven  lovelier  hills  than  Rome,  is 
a  thriving  place  of  about  two  hundred  whites  and  thou- 
sands of  natives  and  Indians  in  the  teeming  bazaar 
streets.  At  Kampala  our  safari  was  really  over.  Here 
were  shops  and  hotels  and  clubs  and  telephones  and  ice 
tinkling  in  tall  glasses — that  ice  we  had  dreamed  about 
on  the  Ruindi — here  were  movies  and  private  dramatics 
and  dinners  and  dances  and  everything. 

We  put  away  our  khaki  and  hobnails  and  put  on 
white  silks  and  rode  about  luxuriously  in  rickshaws 
drawn  by  one  boy  and  pushed  by  another,  on  our  excur- 
sions to  the  bazaars  or  to  the  tops  of  the  neighboring 
hills.  Namirembe  Hill  is  crowned  by  the  English 
Church  Mission  and  a  huge  cathedral  to  accommodate 
seven  thousand  is  being  built  there  now  to  replace  the 
old  building  whose  thatched  roof  and  conical  towers 
were  a  part  of  the  old  Uganda  landscape.  Near  by  is 
the  famous  hospital  of  Dr.  Cook.  Nyasemba  Hill  has 
St.  Joseph's  Mission,  and  Rubaga  Hill  is  occupied  by 
the  White  Fathers,  and  another  great  cathedral  is  being 
erected  there.  On  Mengo  Hill  is  the  residence  of  the 
King  of  Uganda,  a  young  man,  King  Daudi,  with 

233 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

whom  much  pains  in  education  have  been  taken.  He 
lives  behind  the  grass  stockade  of  his  fathers,  in  a  bun- 
galow well  furnished  in  English  fashion,  but  sur- 
rounded by  the  native  huts  of  his  attendants,  thatched 
and  woven  in  an  intricate  and  beautiful  manner.  The 
court  of  Daudi  is  merely  a  flourish  of  the  old  tradition. 
Royalty  lies  dead  in  his  grandfather  Mutesa's  tomb  on 
Kasubi  Hill. 

We  made  a  visit  to  the  tomb  which  used  to  be  a  place 
of  pilgrimage,  scrupulously  maintained  by  the  natives ; 
now  it  was  the  tourist  trail,  with  a  caretaker  and  a  price 
of  admission.  But  it  was  an  empty  trail ;  no  Europeans 
had  come  for  a  very  long  time,  we  were  told.  There  was 
a  deserted  air  to  the  ancient  enclosures  behind  the  high 
stockades  woven  in  the  royal  pattern ;  in  the  last  court  a 
sun-baked  parade  ground  stretched  to  the  door  of  the 
house  which  had  been  a  great  king's  palace;  left  and 
right  circled  the  smaller  huts  that  had  been  the  treasure 
houses  or  the  homes  of  wives.  Everything  was  vacant 
now  save  for  a  stooping  beggar  and  a  naked  child  or 
two ;  only  the  white-robed  caretakers  strolled  about  the 
empty  spaces. 

It  was  interesting  to  re-create  the  scene  of  Mutesa's 
lifetime ;  the  four  inclosures  thronged  with  the  courtiers 
whom  etiquette — an  etiquette  whose  infringement  was 
death — required  to  pay  incessant  court  upon  their  king. 
Here  were  powerful  lords  and  overlords  and  their  at- 
tendants, warriors  reporting  their  last  raids,  the 
wretched  captives  in  their  train,  hunters  with  the  spoils 
of  the  chase  and  the  animals  snared  in  their  nets,  fishers 
with  their  gifts,  potters  with  their  finest  jars  for  trib- 

234 


THE  TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA 

ute,  disputing  men  with  cases  to  be  heard,  men  with 
violent  accusations,  accused  men  haled  along  in  bonds, 
medicine  men,  bands  of  musicians — the  flute  players, 
the  pea  gourd  rattlers,  the  harpists,  the  drummers, — a 
jostling  throng  interspersed  with  dogs  and  flocks  of 
goats  and  sheep  offered  for  commutation  of  the  death 
penalty — exchanging  the  death  penalty  for  a  fine  was 
a  great  source  of  royal  revenue — a  motley  mob  threaded 
by  the  little  pages  of  the  king,  who  darted  like  wasps 
on  every  errand,  not  daring  to  walk  lest  they  should 
be  killed  for  sloth — a  world  of  fear  and  hope,  pride  and 
ambition  awaiting  a  despot's  favor.  .  .  .  No  naked 
savages  in  goat  skins  these;  here  were  shrewd,  in- 
genious politicians,  netted  in  a  mesh  of  meticulous  con- 
ventions. The  men's  care  in  clothing  was  extreme;  to 
show  an  inch  of  naked  leg  was  disrespect  punishable  by 
death.  Yet,  curiously  enough  the  king's  valets  were 
women,  utterly  unclothed. 

Through  the  babel  of  this  gathering  throng  would 
come  the  roll  of  the  king's  great  drums  announcing  his 
appearance,  and  the  crowd  would  surge  forward,  pour- 
ing in  the  inclosures  after  the  lords  of  Uganda,  making 
their  way  into  the  king's  presence  to  prostrate  them- 
selves in  wriggling  admiration  and  then  squat  at  devout 
attention  in  a  dense  half  circle  before  the  sovereign. 

The  king's  reception  house  was  the  vast  beehivelike 
building  which  we  were  nearing  now  as  we  walked 
across  the  empty  square;  it  was  marvelously  woven  of 
the  canelike  elephant  grass,  or  the  tiger  grass  as  it 
was  called  here,  tied  intricately  together,  with  an  elab- 
orately thatched  roof.  Within  the  doorway  the  king 

235 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

used  to  show  himself  sitting  on  a  blanket  spread  on  a 
reed  throne,  hy  his  side  his  white  dog,  spear,  and  woman 
— the  Uganda  cognizance,  for  the  father  of  his  line  and 
the  conqueror  of  the  country,  Kigima,  had  come  with  a 
dog,  spear,  and  woman — some  favorite  pages  in  attend- 
ance, and  behind  him,  in  the  back  of  the  hut  facing  the 
entrance,  a  cluster  of  his  women. 

It  was  death  for  a  man  to  gaze  upon  the  king's 
women.  So  the  courtiers  presented  a  stooping,  slant- 
eyed,  cross-eyed  look;  it  was  death  to  touch  the  king's 
robes  or  throne  even  inadvertently;  no  man  might  stand 
in  the  presence  while  the  king  was  sitting  or  standing; 
he  must  sit  lower  than  the  king,  on  penalty  of  death. 
It  was  death,  in  fact,  for  anything  or  nothing;  a  favorite 
wife  who  had  the  presumption  to  offer  Mutesa  fruit 
was  promptly  killed  upon  the  spot. 

Caprice  and  cruelty,  a  nonchalant  barbarity  that 
makes  our  blood  run  cold  with  its  hideousness  of  torture, 
power,  dizzying,  absolute,  that  was  Mutesa's  existence. 
No  Caligula  or  Nero  could  compare  with  him.  He  was 
supreme.  No  man  dared  speak  unless  he  spoke.  No 
man  dissented.  The  gay,  sunny  hill  was  a  shambles 
and  a  furnace. 

I  looked  into  the  interior  of  the  old  palace.  It  was 
so  dark  after  the  blazing  sunlight  of  the  court  that  it 
took  time  for  my  eyes  to  distinguish  the  outlines  of  the 
dim  interior.  I  saw  a  perfect  forest  of  ebony  poles 
reaching,  like  a  sea  of  masts,  up  to  the  high  roof,  leaving 
a  lane  to  the  big  block  of  the  tomb  itself,  which  was  cov- 
ered with  bright  cloth  of  many  colors.  Many  poles 
nearest  the  tomb  were  wound  with  bunting  and  bright 

236 


THE  TOMB  OF   KING  MUTESA 

cloth.  Here,  beneath  the  calico,  in  a  metal-covered  cof- 
fin, made  by  the  missionary,  Mackay,  wound  with  white 
cloth  of  honor,  lay  Mutesa,  son  of  Sunna,  seventh  heir 
of  his  invading  line. 

Mutesa's  was  the  last  great  reign.  After  him  came 
swift  confusion  and  disorder,  civil  war  among  his  sons, 
and  about  them  the  struggle  of  rapidly  growing  power 
of  the  invaders,  Mohammedans  and  Christians,  Prot- 
estants and  Catholics,  until  an  Anglo-German  treaty 
assigned  Uganda  to  Great  Britain,  and  in  1893  the 
British  flag  flew  from  the  grass  peak  of  the  palace. 

It  was  sixty  years  ago  exactly,  that  the  first  white  man 
to  penetrate  these  wilds,  Captain  J.  M.  Speke,  was  re- 
ceived here  at  King  Mutesa's  court.  Sixty  years  is  not 
a  man's  lifetime.  .  .  .  And  now,  sixty  years  after,  our 
small  Alice,  the  first  little  American  to  travel  this  road, 
was  standing  in  the  dark  hut,  staring  at  the  deserted 
tomb.  Back  of  us  from  the  shadows  came  whining  sup- 
plications and  gnarled  arms  of  beggar  women  held  tim- 
idly out.  .  .  .  On  either  side,  among  the  forest  of  ebony 
columns,  we  discerned  forms  crouching  on  bits  of 
mats.  .  .  . 

Sixty  years  since  the  first  white  man.  .  .  .  Those 
crawling  creatures  with  white  wisps  of  hair  falling  over 
their  wrinkled  faces  could  recall  Mutesa  in  his  unbridled 
power.  .  .  .  From  this  place  they  had  seen  his  victims 
dragged  off  to  torture,  to  dismemberment,  to  roasting 
fires.  .  .  .  They  had  seen  the  proudest  chiefs  of  the 
kingdom  prostrating  themselves  in  sycophantic  adora- 
tion on  the  ground.  They  might  well  have  been  present 
when  that  first  white  man  strode  forward,  opening  his 

237 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

strange,  mirth-provoking  umbrella.  .  .  .  And  now 
their  sunken  eyes  gazed  out  with  a  flash  of  wonder  at 
the  little  white  girl  with  the  fair  curls  who  came  to  look 
at  the  tomb  of  their  dead  king,  and  then  danced  so  fear- 
lessly out  into  the  spaces  where  once  it  had  been  death 
to  approach. 

The  administrative  center  of  the  Protectorate  of 
Uganda  is  at  Entebbe,  on  the  shores  of  Victoria  Ny- 
anza,  twenty-five  miles  away.  We  motored  to  Entebbe 
in  a  fraction  of  a  Ford  with  an  Indian  driver  whose 
aberrations  brought  us  nearer  death  than  any  lion  or 
elephant.  It  may  have  been  the  fervid  gratefulness  of 
our  escape  from  his  clutches  and  the  miraculous  sense 
of  renewed  life,  but  Entebbe  seemed  to  us  one  of  the 
fairest  spots  imaginable,  a  bower  of  a  place  on  the 
shores  of  the  great  lake,  which  every  writer  hastens  to 
speak  of  as  the  inland  sea  of  Africa.  The  word  Nyanza 
means  lake  or  sea  or  sometimes  simply  water. 

On  a  slope  above  the  lake  was  the  government  arbo- 
reum  where  a  great  variety  of  tropic  trees  was  grown. 
There  were  palms  whose  hidden  chambers  yielded  clear 
water  to  the  traveler  in  distress ;  there  were  huge  incense 
trees  with  sweet  scented  gum  oozing  through  the 
wounded  bark ;  there  were  groves  of  chocolate  trees  with 
hard,  dark,  shining  fruit,  like  an  oval  orange  in  shape; 
there  were  rubber  trees  where  from  a  tiny  cut  the  pale, 
strange  fluid  stole  out  ...  to  be  rolled  into  a  true 
rubber  ball. 

In  and  out  the  trees,  over  the  shores  of  the  lake,  there 
darted  a  winged  multitude  of  birds,  glittering  little 

238 


THE  TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA 

sun  birds,  preening  and  darting,  golden  weaver  birds 
who  build  huge,  hanging  tenements  of  community  nests, 
shrikes  and  thrushes,  finches  and  warblers,  and  many, 
many  others  for  which  we  had  no  name. 

Africa  had  given  us  a  wealth  of  bird  life  from  the 
Lualaba  River  days  when  the  black  ibis  and  white  egrets 
had  streamed  like  raying  clouds  before  our  boat;  we 
had  seen  blue  heron  and  white  heron,  bustard  and 
ostrich;  storks  like  picture  postcards  of  Holland;  and 
the  Egyptian  goose  by  its  low-hanging  nests  through 
which  the  young  drop  into  the  water  when  hatched ;  bul- 
buls  and  cuckoos  and  bell  birds  had  been  the  music  of  the 
silent  places.  We  had  watched  the  white  Battleor 
eagle  on  his  lonely  flights ;  we  had  heard  at  many  night- 
falls the  hoarse  calling  of  the  Kavirondo  cranes  as  they 
winged  their  way  past  camp,  and  in  sunny  marshes  we 
had  come  upon  the  gleaming  beauty  of  them,  their  velvet 
black  and  whiteness  crowned  with  its  radiant  golden 
crest.  We  had  known  the  marabou  stork  with  his  pre- 
cious fluff  of  white  feathers  beneath  the  bronzed  blue- 
green  sheen  of  his  broad  feathered  tail;  we  had  glimpsed 
the  jeweled  blue  and  crimson  of  gorgeous  plantain 
eaters  and  the  demure  gray  of  parrots.  We  had  grown 
familiar  with  the  great  vultures  who  came  streaming  to 
roost  above  our  kills;  and  our  intimates  were  the  hand- 
some, white-necked  black  crows  who  frequented  our 
kitchen  and  the  little  black  and  white  nameless  fellows 
who  walked  so  fearlessly  about  us  at  every  camp. 

We  felt  that  we  were  just  beginning  to  make  many 
interesting  acquaintances,  and  now  it  was  already  grow- 
ing time  to  say  good-bye  to  them. 

239 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

We  had  luncheon  and  tea  and  "Sundown"  as  the 
guests  of  Dr.  Fiske,  an  American  physician  for  many 
years  in  the  service  of  the  British  government  here.  Dr. 
Fiske  has  a  tremendously  interesting  work  before  him 
now,  the  repopulation  of  the  Sese  Islands.  This 
group  of  lovely  islands,  about  sixteen  in  all,  was  so 
ravaged  by  the  sleeping  sickness  that  ten  years  ago 
the  British  government  removed  every  surviving  native 
and  isolated  the  islands,  to  stamp  out  the  appalling 
plague.  Now  the  infection  is  gone  and  the  remaining 
natives  are  being  taken  back  to  their  former  haunts. 
"Each  man,"  said  Dr.  Fiske,  "wanted  exactly  the  place 
he  had  before;  if  he  tilled  a  zigzag  plot  on  an  incon- 
venient hill  he  wanted  that  precise  field,  not  the  one 
nearer  or  richer."  In  many  cases  it  was  difficult  to 
determine  the  old  boundaries  for  much  of  the  vegetation 
had  disappeared.  In  places  it  had  been  cut  down  to 
remove  the  shade  which  was  so  favorable  to  the  deadly 
tsetse  fly,  and  in  other  places  the  antelopes  had  de- 
voured it. 

In  those  ten  years  that  the  Sese  Islands  have  been 
given  back  to  an  utterly  manless  nature,  an  interesting 
fact  about  the  situtunga  antelope  has  been  revealed. 
This  antelope,  which  is  closely  related  to  the  bush  buck, 
but  larger,  with  long  hoofs  and  shaggy  hair,  has  been 
considered  by  naturalists  exclusively  a  creature  of  the 
marshes,  making  its  home  in  thick,  reed  beds.  It  was 
very  shy  and  wary  and  few  white  men  have  shot  or 
even  seen  it.  There  were  several  living  in  the  marshes 
on  the  Sese  Islands.  Now  in  the  ten  years  of  utter 
peace,  the  situtunga  has  come  out  of  the  marshes  and 

240 


THE  TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA 

frequents  the  highlands,  grazing  in  flocks  like  any 
plains  antelope — a  swift  reversion  to  what  must  have 
been  its  natural  environment  before  the  pressure  of 
danger  drove  it  timidly  into  the  swamps  for  refuge. 

No  cure  has  yet  been  found  for  the  victim  of  the 
sleeping  sickness,  though  physicians  have  been  busy 
with  it  ever  since  the  sickness  came  out  from  the  dark 
forests  of  the  Congo  like  a  blight  upon  the  dwellers  on 
these  peaceful  shores.  Infected  areas  can  be  controlled 
and  isolated  by  cutting  down  the  shade  in  which  the  fly 
loves  to  dwell  and  planting  the  citronella  grass  to  which 
it  is  so  averse;  and  by  removing  all  the  population,  as 
was  done  in  the  Sese  Islands,  the  disease  will  die  out 
for  want  of  reinfection. 

The  fly  is  a  sinister  thing,  longer  and  narrower  than 
a  bluebottle,  gray  and  black  with  crossed  wings.  We 
had  seen  several  on  the  Lualaba  River  in  places  that 
had  formerly  been  sickness  areas  but  which  were  now 
considered  safe,  and  while  these  flies  were  undoubtedly 
uninfected,  they  were  distinctly  disquieting  things  to 
have  about.  It  has  a  near  relative  of  similar  appear- 
ance, which  is  as  deadly  to  domestic  animals  as  this  one 
is  to  human  beings.  When  the  human  biting  fly  does 
not  have  man  to  live  upon  it  is  supposed  to  subsist  on 
the  blood  of  crocodiles.  It  was  at  Entebbe  that  I  first 
heard  the  news  that  a  cure  for  leprosy  had  at  last  been 
discovered  and  that  lepers  were  actually  being  dis- 
charged in  Hawaii  from  Molokai  Island.  .  .  .  What  a 
day  for  Africa  when  a  remedy  is  found  for  the  deadly 
plague  of  sleeping  sickness!  One  bite  of  a  swift  dart- 

241 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

ing  fly  and  the  victim  is  doomed  to  lingering  torment 
and  certain  death. 

After  the  Entebbe  trip,  life  in  Kampala  for  Mr. 
Akeley  was  a  pleasant  memory  of  the  peaceful  hospital 
to  which  he  betook  his  malaria  while  waiting  reports  of 
the  missing  gorilla  skins.  It  was  more  varied  for  the 
rest  of  us. 

There  was  a  daily  descent  upon  the  Trading  Com- 
pany, with  the  invariable  report  that  the  car  sent  back 
for  the  other  car  had  also  broken  down  but  that  a  new 
man  was  going  out  that  very  day;  there  were  constant 
descents  upon  Smith,  Mackenzie  &  Co.,  Limited,  the 
shipping  agents,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  possibilities 
of  a  steamer  but  did  know  that  the  Union  Castle 
steamer,  advertised  for  the  end  of  February,  was  not 
coming  for  another  month  at  least;  there  were  frantic 
interchanges  of  telegrams  with  the  agents  in  Mombasa 
to  discover  the  whereabouts  of  our  trunks,  shipped  three 
months  before  from  Kigoma  in  Tanganyika  to  Dar  Es 
Salaam  to  meet  us  at  Mombasa.  We  appeared  to  have 
neither  ships  nor  clothes  in  which  to  return.  Being 
safely  in  Africa  there  seemed  every  reason  to  remain 
there,  and  I  admit  that  but  for  certain  necessities  at 
home  we  should  have  liked  nothing  better  for  some  time 
to  come. 

Kampala  for  Herbert  meant  the  multitudinous 
details  of  disbanding  the  equipment  and  selling  the 
tents,  bicycles,  etc.,  and  the  packing  of  our  various  ac- 
cumulations. As  he  wrestled  with  baskets  and  tusks 
and  elephant  feet,  and  the  disposition  of  spears  and 
gourds,  and  the  problems  of  poisoning  skins  for  their 

242 


THE  TOMB  OF  KING  MUTESA 

incarceration  in  a  ship's  hold  for  a  long,  hot  voyage  over 
seas ;  and  with  getting  men  to  agree  to  make  boxes  and 
getting  the  men  to  make  the  boxes,  and  getting  the 
things  into  the  boxes,  and  getting  the  boxes  into  the 
train  on  the  ultimate  afternoon  when  the  skins  finally 
came  in  and  we  raced  to  catch  the  weekly  steamer,  his 
ideas  for  the  equipment  of  his  next  African  trip 
dwindled  to  the  simplicities  of  the  native,  and  his  next 
collection  of  trophies,  he  resolved,  would  be  of  the  dodo 
or  the  unicorn.  Nothing  less  remarkable  was  ever  going 
to  be  packed.  .  .  . 

The  great  difficulty  of  getting  anything  done  in  the 
tropics  is  that  the  working  day  is  so  short.  The  day 
itself  begins  early  enough,  heaven  knows.  It  begins  at 
five-thirty  with  a  cup  of  tea  brought  to  your  bedside. 

I  loathed  tea  at  five-thirty.  I  loathed  five-thirty. 
After  the  strenuousness  of  safari  I  wanted  sleep — lazy, 
comfortable  sleep  stretching  on  into  the  forenoon — say 
until  seven.  I  told  the  hotel  boy  about  myself  and  my 
desires  in  explicit  Swahili.  When  he  brought  the  tea 
the  next  morning  at  five-thirty  I  sat  up  and  said, 
"Pana  chi"  (No  tea),  in  fierce  rejection  and  that  night 
I  locked  my  door. 

"Now!"  said  I,  triumphantly. 

But  no.  Five-thirty — and  a  tentative  trying  of  the 
handle.  I  lay  still.  A  knock.  A  louder  knock.  A 
rattle.  Then  receding,  frustrate  steps.  ...  I  smiled. 
...  I  prepared  to  drift  beatifically  off — and  then  a  click 
from  the  French  windows  opening  on  the  verandas  and 
a  white  clad  form  slipped  stealthily  in,  approached  my 
bedside  with  pantherine  celerity  and  deposited  in 

243 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

triumph  the  tray  of  tea.  Honor  had  been  vindicated. 
His  job  was  to  bring  me  tea  and  he  brought  it. 

I  succumbed.  The  motto  of  that  hotel  was  Service, 
and  except  in  the  matter  of  the  tea  we  appreciated  it. 
It  was  the  most  comfortable  hotel  that  I  ever  found  in 
Africa,  or  in  America  for  that  matter,  and  we  have 
most  pleasant  memories  of  its  spacious,  airy  rooms,  the 
cool  verandas,  the  delightful  meals,  and  the  services  of 
the  boys  who  paddle  about  like  barefoot,  white-robed, 
ministering  angels.  The  name  of  that  hotel  is  the 
Imperial  and  I  want  to  record  it. 

The  tea  was  only  the  first  intrusion.  It  was  all  very 
well  to  ignore  its  steaming  presence  and  drift  off  to 
sleep,  but  the  sleep  was  momentary — another  knock 
preluded  the  entrance  of  the  boy  to  take  your  shoes 
to  clean  and  after  that  the  boy  came  back  for  the  tea 
cups  and  the  shoe  boy  came  back  with  the  shoes  and 
the  bath  boy  came  with  the  bath.  We  had  kept  our 
three  Elizabethville  boys  and  found  them  useful  for 
errands  and  for  our  washing  and  pressing.  The  ver- 
andas outside  all  the  bedrooms  were  often  a  scene  of 
great  domestic  activity,  a  big  black  boy  ironing  away 
on  a  little  table  or  sitting  cross-legged  sewing  expertly. 
The  flat  iron  of  Africa  has  a  hollow  filled  vrfth  glowing 
charcoal  so  it  could  be  used  anywhere. 

The  house  boys  of  East  Africa  wore  invariably  the 
Arab  robe  falling  to  their  feet  and  the  small  embroidered 
cap  of  Zanzibar,  while  many  natives  we  saw  on  the 
streets  aspired  to  the  white  man's  "shorts"  and  a  pukka 
shirt  and — last  flight  of  opulence  and  aristocracy — shoes 
and  puttees.  Often  they  wore  the  puttees  without  the 

244 


THE  TOMB  OF   KING  MUTESA 

shoes.  Our  own  boys  who  had  come  in  the  bizarre  tatters 
of  safari  now  beggared  themselves  for  white  shirts  and 
shorts  made  by  the  Indian  tailors. 

After  the  advent  of  bath  you  resigned  yourself  and 
got  up  as  you  ought  to  do  to  enjoy  the  lovely  freshness 
of  morning.  After  breakfast  we  used  to  stroll  out  on  the 
veranda  to  see  what  the  traders  had  brought  for  the  day. 
Under  a  shady  tree  the  venders  spread  their  wares 
— leopard  skins  and  bowls  of  black  Uganda  pottery, 
the  bark  cloth  so  abundant  in  the  region,  the  typical 
tall  drums,  brightly  colored  baskets  from  the  Soudan, 
and  beautifully  made  musical  instruments  with  sound- 
ing boards  covered  with  lizard  skin.  .  .  .  Only  Herbert 
was  sternly  cold  to  these  enticements,  and  when  we 
yielded  to  bowls  and  baskets  we  approached  him  with 
the  qualms  of  the  confessional. 

The  business  life  of  the  tropics  begins  about  ten,  the 
social  life  at  eleven  when  morning  calls  and  lemon 
squash  or  anything  else  are  vogue;  from  twelve  to  two 
siesta  reigns,  and  then  business  matters  may  be  trans- 
acted until  four-thirty  when  the  sacred  rite  of  tea  con- 
cludes the  strenuous  day.  The  waning  hours  of  sun,  the 
helmetless  hours,  are  consecrated  to  golf  and  tennis,  and 
af  six-thirty  the  world  gathers  for  its  "Sundown." 
That  ceremony  needs  no  explanation  to  any  old  travelers 
in  the  tropics;  to  explain  it  to  an  American  audience 
would  only  wake  the  regrettable  resentment  against 
Law  Enforcement  too  often  noted  in  these  United 
States.  The  rite,  however,  is  often  celebrated  in  ginger 
ale  or  lemon  squash — but  it  is  always  celebrated. 

After  sundown  the  social  drift  is  towards  the  club, 

245 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  after  dinner  to  the  club  again  unless  there  is  a 
dance  somewhere  else.  Between  packing  and  sociability 
and  reports  to  the  invalid  at  the  hospital,  life  was  varied 
at  Kampala.  Major  F.  A.  Flint  was  our  frequent  host 
a  tea,  sundown,  and  dinner,  and  we  shall  not  soon  for- 
get his  heartening  help  in  any  difficulty  and  his  fund 
of  stories — the  generous  way  he  detached  any  admired 
trophy  from  his  walls  and  sent  it  over  on  his  boy's  head 
next  morning  made  us  hesitate  to  utter  a  word  of 
admiration.  From  him  we  secured  the  rare  situtunga 
horns  and  a  pair  of  the  wide-branching  horns  of  the 
Ankole  cattle. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 

VICTORIA  NYANZA  TO  NAIROBI;  MOMBASA  AND  THE 

EAST  COAST 

JANUARY  24  saw  us  off  at  last,  by  train,  to  Fort  Bell 
seven  miles  away  and  then  on  the  Rusinga,  an  attractive 
steamer,  across  the  serene  Victoria  Nyanza,  blue  and 
calm  and  smiling  about  us.  The  low-lying  wooded 
shores  were  very  different  from  our  memories  of  Tan- 
ganyika and  Kivu.  They  were  charming  but  we  missed 
our  mountains. 

There  was  a  stop  at  Jinja,  a  breakfast  with  the  Com- 
missioner and  his  wife,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry,  and  a  rick- 
shaw ride  to  Ripon  Falls  where  the  waters  of  the  Nile 
take  their  first  plunge  from  out  the  lake.  The  cascades 
are  not  tremendous  but  they  are  very  lovely;  a  little 
cormorant-studded  island  around  which  we  saw  otters 
swimming  gives  picturesqueness,  and  the  first  glassy 
flow  of  the  deep  waters  over  the  submerged  rocks  has 
unfailing  fascination. 

This  was  the  tourist  trail  again,  and  here  were  tourists 
from  Boston,  two  enterprising  ladies  who  had  been  told 
by  Messrs.  Cook  of  Cairo  that  they  could  come  into 
Africa  as  far  as  the  Birth  of  the  Nile  without  set- 
ting foot  to  the  ground.  Here  was  the  Birth  of  the 
Nile  and  here  they  were,  and  I  gathered  that  set  foot 

247 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

to  ground  they  had  not.  Judging  from  the  sing-song 
plaints  of  the  riskshaw  boys  who  pushed  them  away, 
a  little  exercise  would  not  have  been  unappreciated. 

Off  across  the  Nyanza  again,  and  at  noon  of  the  third 
day  we  reached  Kisumu  or  Port  Florence  in  the  Kavi- 
rondo  country  and  changed  to  the  train  for  the  high 
climb  to  Nairobi. 

We  woke  to  see  a  band  of  zebras  staring  at  us,  so 
close  we  could  fairly  see  their  eyelashes — fat,  chunky 
little  fellows  like  painted  polo  ponies.  Ever  since 
Swiss  Family  Robinson  days,  I  had  been  nurtured  in 
the  belief  that  the  zebra  was  fleeter  than  any  horse.  It 
was  pain  to  learn  that  a  good  horse  could  run  one  down. 
All  day  we  went  through  a  beautiful  country,  vast 
plains  alternating  with  woods  of  the  Australian  eucalyp- 
tus, planted  in  close  packed  rows.  At  intervals  we 
stopped  at  stations  for  breakfast,  luncheon,  and  tea.  In 
the  plains  we  saw  our  first  kongoni;  he  was  a  quizzical 
looking  old  antelope,  his  long  face  of  bland  curiosity 
keeping  watch  over  any  particular  friends,  antelopes 
or  zebras,  grazing  at  hand.  We  passed  Naivasha,  a 
lovely  lake  with  a  floating  island.  Hippos  abound  in 
its  waters. 

The  country  grew  flatter  and  flatter.  Suddenly  tin 
houses  appeared — the  little  corrugated  shacks  of  our 
west.  The  train  ran  through  a  cluster  of  them  and  came 
to  a  stop  in  a  station  of  hurry  and  bustle,  stalls  and 
papers  and  magazines — Nairobi.  Nairobi,  whose  wide 
street  of  shops  and  rickshaws  had  so  foreign  a  flavor  to 
us,  during  our  week  of  waiting  at  the  Norfolk  hotel, 
but  where  the  old-timers  gather  at  that  Norfolk  bar  and 

248 


GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 

"Them  days  is  gone  forever,"  is  the  burden  of  their 
song.  Nairobi  of  stone  country  houses  and  private 
racing  stables, — and  tea  and  terraces  and  sunken  gar- 
dens and  dinners  and  dances:  Nairobi,  where  a  motor's 
ride  away  lions  are  roaring  and  the  glistening  Kikuyus, 
naked  but  for  leaves  and  paint,  are  dancing  beneath 
their  sacred  tree. 

We  met  there  many  whose  names  are  familiar  through 
books  of  travel,  Sir  Northrop  McMillan  and  his  wife, 
both  American  born,  whose  Juja  ranch  is  famous. 
We  did  not  get  out  to  the  ranch;  the  McMillans'  Nairobi 
home  is  a  most  attractive,  delightful,  gray  stone  place, 
covered  with  the  blue  blossoming  plumbago,  and  Lady 
McMillan's  racing  stable  houses  about  fifty  lovely 
thoroughbreds. 

We  met,  too,  these  well-known  outfitters,  Messrs. 
Newland  and  Tarlton,  whom  other  expeditions  usually 
meet  on  entering  the  country;  we  gazed  upon  the 
trophies  of  that  Due  d'Orleans  who  had  been  on  the 
Kenilworth  Castle  with  us,  going  with  his  physician 
after  big  game ;  we  heard  the  gossip  of  all  recent  expedi- 
tions. We  met  Major  Dugmore,  whose  African  pictures 
are  so  well  known,  just  starting  with  the  expedition  of 
Mr.  Harris  of  Detroit,  a  young  graduate  of  Yale,  anx- 
ious to  obtain  beautiful  pictures  of  African  animals. 

A  party  of  us  motored  to  see  a  dance  of  the  Kiku- 
yus. Although  they  live  the  closest  to  the  encroach- 
ing civilization,  these  men  wear  less  than  any  savages 
we  encountered  in  the  interior;  in  many  cases  a  string 
of  beads  and  a  literal  fig  leaf  sufficed,  and  at  times  the 
fig  leaf  was  omitted.  The  emphasis  was  entirely  upon 

249 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

decoration.  They  were  painted  to  the  saturation  point. 
Their  hair  glistened  with  ruddy  ochre,  their  bodies  were 
vivid  with  white  and  scarlet  and  lemon  yellow  and  hor- 
rifying pea  green.  Each  man  had  worked  out  a  per- 
sonal scheme  of  decoration ;  each  had  his  intricate  facial 
designs,  vivid  half  moons  and  polka  dots,  and  each  body 
was  zoned  and  ornamented  according  to  the  personal 
taste  of  the  designer.  They  made  a  mad  picture  as  they 
stamped  and  sang  and  surged  back  and  forth,  now  in 
brilliant  sunlight,  now  in  the  shades  of  the  vast  spread- 
ing sacred  tree  of  two  hundred  years  veneration. 

Even  the  onlookers  were  smeared  with  the  burnt 
sienna-colored  ochre  of  the  region,  the  red  earth  mixed 
with  castor  oil  smeared  on  hair  and  skin  and  goat  skins. 
Only  the  chief,  shrouded  in  a  scarlet  blanket,  disdained 
the  paint.  He  took  a  fancy  to  Alice  and  led  her  out 
for  the  dance  to  go  on  about  them.  Alice  was  frankly 
tired  of  chiefs  but  she  was  intrigued  by  the  Kikuyu's 
way  of  decorating  his  ear — by  making  an  aperture  in 
the  lobe,  and  then  distending  it  to  such  surprising  size 
that  a  tin  can  is  sometimes  worn  as  an  insertion. 

On  our  way  back  we  stopped  for  tea  at  the  Newlands', 
where  there  were  two  dear  little  girls — Elaine  and  Mar- 
garet. Margaret's  advent  had  been  known  to  us  twelve 
years  before  through  John  McCutcheon's  cartoon  of 
welcome  to  her,  reproduced  in  his  In  Africa. 

Another  character  of  the  East  Coast  we  met  in 
Nairobi  was  Cherry  Kearton,  whose  African  pictures 
have  been  often  shown  in  America.  He  told  us  a  mag- 
nificent story  about  lions.  There  were  six  lions  and  a 
tree.  Mr.  Kearton  and  a  friend  were  in  the  tree.  As 

250 


RIPON   FALLS — THE   BIRTH   OF  THE   NILE 


[page  250] 


ALICE  AT  A  CEREMONIAL  DANCE  OF  THE  KIKUYUS 


[page  250] 


NATIVES  SAWING  IK   NAIROBI 


[page  253] 


A  RICKSHAW  AT  MOMBASA 


[page  253] 


GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 

that  story  developed,  in  its  strength  and  simplicity,  I 
found  myself  believing  in  it,  believing  utterly.  There 
was  no  reason  why  that  story  should  not  have  happened 
to  Cherry  Kearton — he  had  been  long  enough  in  the 
country  to  have  almost  anything  happen.  I  accepted  it. 
I  accepted  all  six  of  the  lions.  And  then  he  added  a 
detail.  He  spoke  of  seeing  the  light  of  their  eyes — six 
pairs  of  gleaming  eyes  in  the  dark. 

Now  there  is  a  school  of  romance  that  encourages 
belief  in  the  gleam  of  a  cat's  eyes  at  night,  but  the  only 
time  that  a  cat's  eyes  gleam  at  night  is  when  there  is 
a  light  directly  reflected  by  them.  If  there  is  a  light  in 
the  room  behind  you  and  you  look  under  the  bed  in  a 
dark  room  your  cat's  eyes  under  the  bed  may  gleam 
back  at  you.  And  if  you  are  up  a  tree  and  have  six 
lions  around  you  and  you  flash  a  light  down  into  the 
darkness,  it  may  happen  to  be  reflected  from  the  eyes 
of  a  lion  directly  in  front  of  that  light;  the  other  five 
pairs  of  eyes  are  gleamless.  And  if  you  are  up  a  tree 
and  you  flash  no  light  you  get  no  gleam  from  any  lion. 

I  do  not  say  that  this  discredits  the  complete  drama 
of  Mr.  Kearton's  story.  He  may,  like  many  another 
artist,  have  gilded  his  original  lily.  He  did  not  think  we 
knew  the  truth  about  a  cat's  eyes  at  night.  But  he  knew 
it.  ...  And  somehow  I  find  myself  not  believing  in  all 
six  of  the  lions.  Say  about  one  and  a  half. 

But  we  did  believe  in  his  tame  chimpanzee,  for  he 
brought  him  to  the  hotel  and  the  chimpanzee  and  Alice 
promptly  cuddled  up  together. 

There  was  another  and  grimmer  lion  story  I  heard 
from  an  old  surveyor  whose  business  led  him  among  the 

251 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

native  villages  where  he  was  on  very  friendly  terms. 
One  night  he  was  being  entertained  in  the  chief's  hut, 
where  he  slept  with  the  chief  who  was  remarkably  fat, 
and  two  of  his  sons.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  some- 
thing, some  pricking  prescience  of  danger,  made  the 
white  man  stir.  The  tiny  aperture  of  a  door,  the  only 
entrance  to  the  hut,  framing  a  light  square  of  sky,  was 
suddenly  blotted  out.  The  next  instant  there  was  a 
scream,  and  then  a  growl  and  cracking  of  bones.  A 
lion  had  entered  and  struck  down  one  of  the  little  black 
boys. 

It  was  a  horrible  situation.  And  the  white  man  in 
order  to  show  his  trust  had  left  his  gun  in  another  hut 
with  his  other  belongings.  .  .  .  Nor  had  the  chief  a 
knife.  The  three  of  them  lay  there  quaking  and  silent, 
not  daring  to  stir,  while  the  lion  munched  down  the 
chief's  son,  leisurely,  hour  after  hour,  it  seemed.  The 
beast  was  between  them  and  the  door;  sometimes  they 
could  see  his  head  silhouetted  against  it.  Finally, 
gorged  and  replete,  he  rolled  over  against  it,  by  the 
body  of  the  boy  and  went  off  to  sleep.  He  slept  there 
all  day.  And  those  three  lay  there  unstirring,  afraid 
to  move  a  finger.  They  could  not  dig  themselves  out 
through  that  bricklike  floor;  they  could  not  break  the 
reeds  of  the  hut.  The  one  thought  in  the  surveyor's 
mind  was  that  the  lion  would  surely  get  thirsty  and  go 
out  for  a  drink — he  kept  telling  himself  that  over  and 
over  again.  He  would  lie  up  all  day  and  go  out  and 
drink  at  evening. 

Evening  came — the  lion  began  fo  stretch  and  stir. 
.  .  .  Then  came  a  sound  like  a  cat  lapping  milk — blood 

252 


GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 

— the  boy's  blood  was  his  drink — then  a  sniff.  It  oc- 
curred to  the  surveyor  that  he  might  be  hungry  again, 
but  there  must  surely  be  enough  of  the  lad  left  for  a 
second  meal.  He  made  horrible  calculations.  Then 
the  lion  began  to  walk  silently  about  that  hut.  The 
door  was  visible  again. 

They  made  a  dash  for  it,  but  fat  as  he  was  the  native 
chief  reached  the  door  before  the  boy  or  the  white  man 
reached  it  and  made  a  plunge  and  stuck.  The  door 
was  edged  with  sapling  uprights,  through  which  it  was 
always  a  squeeze  to  go  in,  and  somehow  in  this  crucial 
moment  he  stuck.  He  hadn't  an  instant's  grace;  the 
lion  was  after  him.  What  followed  is  not  pretty.  The 
lion  simply  ate  him,  gradually  and  completely,  while 
the  boy  and  the  surveyor,  utterly  helpless,  lay  there 
sick  with  terror.  The  only  merit  in  the  situation,  and 
the  surveyor  admitted  that  he  was  callous  with  the  thing 
by  then,  was  that  the  lion  was  headed  outward  and  was 
eating  himself  finally  out  of  the  hut.  But,  alas,  the 
dimensions  of  the  chief,  that  had  caused  him  to  stick, 
were  no  smaller  in  the  lion.  As  the  gorged  beast 
pressed  forward,  he,  too,  felt  himself  caught ;  he  pushed 
— the  saplings  gripped  him,  he  could  go  neither  forward 
nor  back.  He  was  caught,  trapped  with  his  swollen 
avoirdupois.  And  there  he  was  stuck  until  he  should 
starve  down  to  thin  dimensions  again — with  the  sur- 
veyor and  the  remaining  boy  bottled  up  behind  him. 

The  surveyor  stopped.  "And  he  did  starve  down?'* 
I  demanded  at  that  point. 

"Ultimately,"  said  the  surveyor.     "But  it  took  days." 

I  thought  of  the  two  imprisoned  there  in  that  horrible 

253 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

hut.  "But  you — what  did  you  live  on?"  I  thought  to 
ask. 

"Oh, — that/1  said  the  surveyor.  "I  lived  on  the 
boy." 

From  Nairobi  the  tourist  trail  runs  down  to  the  sea, 
three  hundred  and  thirty  miles  to  Mombasa  and  a  de- 
scent of  five  thousand  feet.  Past  Kiu  and  Tsavo  and 
Simba  it  runs,  names  that  are  starred  with  anecdotal 
interest  in  the  tourist's  lexicon,  across  the  wide  plains, 
Kapiti  and  Athi,  through  the  famous  preserves  where 
herds  of  wild  game  ramble  past  the  rolling  car  windows. 

This  is  the  tourist's  usual  introduction  to  Africa 
coming  in  from  the  East  Coast,  but  we  found  the  trail 
as  interesting  on  leaving  the  country  as  if  we  were  see- 
ing Africa  for  the  first  time — in  fact  there  is  a  poignancy 
to  last  times  that  made  every  crooked  little  thorn  tree 
an  object  of  tender  affection. 

In  these  sun-burned  reaches  we  saw  none  of  the  cob 
and  topi  that  covered  the  Ruindi;  in  fact  the  topi  is  so 
rare  in  Kenya  Colony  that  the  hunter  is  limited  to  two, 
but  we  saw  kongoni  and  waterbuck  and  gazelles,  the 
large  and  graceful  Grants  with  its  splendid  sweep  of 
horns  and  the  frolicking  little  Tommy,  or  Thompsons, 
with  his  black  and  white  striped  sides  and  his  ever  flirt- 
ing tail.  More  novel  and  interesting  than  these  to  us 
were  the  zebra,  of  which  we  saw  fifty  in  one  herd,  and 
the  giraffe. 

Our  first  glimpse  of  giraffe  was  of  a  procession  of 
them  rocking  along  against  the  sky  line  for  all  the 
world  like  little  mechanical  toys ;  then  we  passed  a  long 
line  very  close  to  the  train,  twenty-four  of  them  strung 

254 


<TI.\NT  BAOBAB  TREE  AT  MOMBASA 


[page  254] 


GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 


[page  254] 


MEMORIES 


[page    255] 


GOOD-BY  TO  AFRICA 

along  the  way  with  their  amusing  heads  hung  up  in  the 
sky  as  if  suspended  from  nothing  at  all,  staring  down 
earnestly  upon  us.  Then  one  by  one  each  turned  and 
galloped  away.  The  gait  of  the  giraffe  is  the  final 
joke  of  its  appearance,  a  trot  with  the  first  two  legs  and 
a  rocking  gallop  with  the  last.  This  sounds  as  if  it 
were  intended  for  a  joke  like  the  gait  itself,  but  its 
truth  is  vouched  for  by  no  less  a  naturalist  than  Mr. 
Akeley,  who  affirms  that  he  is  its  discoverer,  and  after 
the  constituent  elements  are  pointed  out,  you  can 
easily  distinguish  the  paces  for  yourself. 

Mombasa  was  a  blaze  of  white  coral — a  little  island 
three  miles  by  two,  glittering  like  a  frosted  birthday 
cake  with  that  white  rock  of  which  its  foundations  and 
its  buildings  are  made.  It  was  as  tropical  as  a  dream 
of  the  South  Seas,  tufted  with  the  cocoanut  palms  and 
baobabs, — giants  of  trees  with  huge  bottle-shaped 
trunks — spangled  with  scarlet  bloom  and  brilliant  with 
sunshine  from  a  fervid  blue  sky. 

It  was  a  pocket  of  contrasts.  It  rattled  with  rick- 
shaws and  motors.  Green  golf  links  stretched  out  to 
crumbling  ruins  of  old  Portuguese  forts.  On  a  street 
corner  an  English  girl  and  a  black  bibi  in  a  yard  of  cal- 
ico and  a  veil-shrouded  woman  of  the  East.  .  .  .  Tennis 
and  tea  shops  .  .  .  tourists  .  .  .  tailors  sewing  cross- 
legged  and  yellow  Indian  babies  with  pearls  dripping 
from  nose  and  ears  minded  by  patient  black  boys  .  .  . 
a  swimming  club  and  a  lone  row  of  cocoanut  palms  and 
a  white  beach  where  the  Indian  ocean  rolls  lazily  in, 
and  painted  dhows  rock  in  the  tide  and  cattle  bellow  in 
their  holds.  .  .  . 

255 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

Out  across  that  Indian  Ocean  ran  the  trail  for  Home. 
Up  from  Mombasa  to  Guardafui,  through  the  Gulf 
to  Aden  on  its  barren  rocks,  over  to  the  sunbaked  camel 
squares  of  Jibouti,  the  mouth  of  Abyssinia,  up  through 
the  Red  Sea  and  the  ribbon  of  the  Suez  Canal,  through 
the  Bitter  Lakes,  past  Port  Said,  where  the  East  and 
West  meet  in  unholy  traffic,  and  across  the  Mediterra- 
nean to  Marseilles,  and  a  racketing  train  through 
France  to  a  blowy  channel.  Then  England.  Then 
America.  Then  Home. 

Ahead  of  us  ran  the  trail.  Behind  us  was  the  old 
Africa  that  we  knew  and  had  learned  to  love,  the  Africa 
that  had  been  going  on  from  the  beginning  of  time,  the 
wild  and  lovely  land  untouched  of  man.  Lost  to  us 
were  the  vast  spaces,  the  splendor  of  waters,  the  mad 
glory  of  volcanoes,  the  fairy  isles  of  hidden  lakes,  the 
enchantment  of  cloud- wrapped  heights ;  lost  the  solitude 
and  the  beauty  and  the  freedom  that  make  our  civiliza- 
tion seem  a  prison  and  a  market  place. 

Gone,  too,  was  the  kindly  security  of  the  wilderness, 
the  open  tent  flap,  the  money  box  left  carelessly  with- 
out, the  unguarded  ways.  I  was  sorry  to  take  the  Lit- 
tlest Explorer  back  to  charging  motors  and  barred  doors 
to  face  with  her  again  the  perils  of  civilization. 

Africa  had  been  so  worth  while.  And  no  after-years 
can  take  the  memories  from  us — the  black  outline  of  a 
lion  against  the  moonlight  .  .  .  the  sheen  of  the  golden 
crested  crane  .  .  .  women  with  water  jars  crossing  the 
opal  sands  of  Tanganyika  .  .  .  the  long,  superb  line 
of  Mikeno  cutting  the  tropic  sky  ...  a  glade  in  a  fairy 
forest  and  a  great  gorilla  in  the  sun. 

256 


CHAPTER  XX 

LISTS  AND  EQUIPMENT,  ETC. 

EQUIPMENT  is  of  interest  only  to  those  contemplating 
an  African  trip  and  then  it  becomes  of  feverish  impor- 
tance. Every  one's  experience  is  different  and  some- 
times contradictory,  but  the  accumulation  of  individ- 
ual detail  often  throws  light  on  a  subject.  For  the 
benefit  of  those  who  want  to  know,  I  am  adding  some 
lists  of  what  we  took  with  us  and  trying  to  answer  the 
questions  of  what  we  really  wore  and  ate  and  needed 
on  such  an  expedition. 

Our  experience  was  unlike  that  of  the  usual  traveler 
who  enters  the  country  by  the  East  Coast  and  engages 
the  services  of  such  a  firm  as  Newland,  Tarlton  and 
Company,  Limited,  from  whom  he  can  obtain  any  part 
or  all  of  his  equipment  and  the  services  of  porters,  gun 
boys,  tent  boys,  and  cooks  for  the  entire  time  that  he 
is  in  the  field.  In  the  past  Mr.  Akeley  had  got  his 
things  from  England  and  engaged  his  men  from  New- 
land,  Tarlton.  Colonel  Roosevelt  had  outfitted  in 
America  and  got  his  men  from  Newland,  Tarlton.  I 
met  men  who  outfitted  personally  at  the  Nairobi  stores 
and  engaged  their  men  themselves. 

For  our  safari  we  brought  everything  from  America 
and  England,  picked  up  boys  as  we  got  into  the  Congo 
and  carried  them  through  with  us,  and  obtained  por- 

257 


ters  at  different  posts  and  villages.  We  changed  por- 
ters eight  times.  We  took  our  goods  up  the  long  way 
north  from  the  Cape  as  excess  baggage  instead  of 
freight,  in  order  to  have  it  travel  on  the  same  trains  with 
us.  Mr.  Akeley  was  already  provided  with  some  of 
his  bags  and  nets  so  the  orders  in  the  ensuing  lists  are 
often  for  odd  numbers.  The  following  supplies  were 
all  obtained  from  Benjamin  Edgington,  1  Duke  Street, 
London  Bridge. 

CAMP  EQUIPMENT 

1  "Whymper"  tent  complete. 

3  double  roof  ridge  tents,  10  by  8 — four  feet  walls,  in  valises. 

1  extra  fly,  with  uprights,  ropes,  complete. 

3  ground  sheets  from  heavy  green  rot-proof  canvas  11  by  9. 

4  mosquito  nets,  fine  mesh,  for  half  tent. 

3  circular  canvas  baths. 

6  holdall  bags  with  bars  and  padlocks. 

6  green  round  bottomed  bags  fitted  with  eyelets  and  cords, 
43  by  30. 

5  enamel  wash  basins. 

6  "Uganda"  waterbottles,  8  pints. 

2  Machilla  hammocks,  green  canvas,  with  awnings,  double 
strength. 

12  Bath  towels. 
18  Face  towels. 

6  Ibea  folding  chairs. 

6  best  quality  deck  chairs. 

6  air-tight  boxes. 

6  small  green  hair  pillows. 

4  candle  lanterns. 

Our  cots  were  the  Gold  Medal,  Racine,  Wisconsin, 
extra  size.    Our  dining  tables  were  a  special  design  of 

258 


LISTS  AND  EQUIPMENT,  ETC. 

Mr.  Akeley's  made  for  us  by  a  friend,  Mr.  Clarence 
Dewey,  in  New  York.  Our  kitchen  ware,  tools,  such 
as  hammer  and  hatchet  and  rope — it  is  essential  to  have 
a  good  deal  of  rope — were  bought  at  Elizabethville 
where  we  bought  our  bicycles.  We  were  unable  to  ob- 
tain the  desired  petrol  lamps  in  the  Congo  so  we  were 
obliged  to  depend  on  our  candle  lanterns.  It  would  be 
wise  to  come  provided  with  a  good  light.  We  had  both 
the  ordinary  type  of  flash  light  with  extra  batteries  and 
the  type  that  creates  its  power  by  constant  squeezing 
and  both  are  desirable. 

Our  food  supplies  were  all  obtained  through  Edging- 
ton's,  and  came  put  up  in  "chop  boxes,"  wooden  boxes 
with  lock  and  key,  packed  not  to  exceed  a  porter's 
weight  of  sixty  pounds,  and  marked  for  identification. 
These  supplies  were  the  following: 

TWENTY  CASES,  EACH  CONTAINING 

2  tins  cheese,  Cheddar,  Gruyere,  Camembert. 

1  pound  tin  Ceylon  tea. 

4  pound  tin  granulated  sugar. 

4  tins  sardines  in  oil. 

2  1 -pound  tins  rolled  ox  tongue. 

3  tins  Underwood  deviled  ham. 

5  tins  jam,  assorted,  no  currant. 
2  tins  Dundee  marmalade. 

4  one  half-pound  tins  Danish  butter. 

6  one  half-pound  tins  beef  dripping. 

5  half-pound  tins  Ideal  milk. 

2  number  2  tins  small  captain  biscuits. 
4  tins  Heinz  baked  beans  and  tomato. 

1  small  tin  Cerebos  salt. 

2  one-pound  tins  plain  chocolate. 

259 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

1  one-and-a-half  pound  tin  Scotch  oatmeal. 
1  one-half  pound  tin  baking  powder. 

1  box  about  two-and-a-half  pound  primrose  laun- 
dry soap. 

TWENTY  CASES,  EACH  CONTAINING 

2  tins  Heinz  baked  beans  and  tomato. 
2  tins  smoked  sardines  in  oil. 

2  tins  smoked  brisling  in  oil. 

2  tins  camp  pie. 

5  tins  jam   assorted,  no   currant. 

2  tins  Dundee  marmalade. 

5  one-half  pound  tins  Danish  butter. 

5  one-half  pound  tins  dripping. 

5  half-pound  tins  Ideal  milk. 

2  tins  cheese,  Cheddar,  Gruyere,  Camembert. 

1  one-pound  tin  Ceylon  tea. 

1  three-quarter-pound  tin  ground  pure  coffee. 

1  four-pound  tin  granulated  sugar. 

1  one-quarter-pound  tin  pure  cocoa. 

4  No.  1  tin  camp  biscuits,  plain,  various. 

1  small  tin  Cerebos  salt. 

1  one-and-a-half-pound  tin  Scotch  oatmeal. 

2  two-pound  tin  prunes. 

1  one-ounce  castor  ground  white  pepper. 

2  sponge  cloths. 

12  quire  kitchen  paper. 
2  one-pound  tins  plain  chocolate. 
1  bar  primrose  laundry  soap. 

EIGHT  CASES,  EACH  CONTAINING 

6  seven-pound  tins  flour,  special  export. 

Two  CASES,  EACH  CONTAINING 

15  bottles  Montserat  lime  juice. 
260 


LISTS  AND  EQUIPMENT,  ETC. 

Two  CASES,  EACH  CONTAINING 

30  pounds  Wiltshire  bacon, 
canvas  and  salt. 

FIVE  CASES  CONTAINING 

4  tins  whole  Edam  cheese. 
20  2-ounce  tins  Bovril. 
10  2-pound  tins  Sultana  raisins. 
10  1 -pound  tins  macaroni. 
30  4-ounce  tins  Underwood's  deviled  ham. 
20  bars  carbolic  soap. 
10  bottles  Enos  fruit  salt. 
10  1-pound  tins  Christmas  pudding. 

6  one  half-pound  tins  curry  powder. 
10  one  half-pound  tins  yellow  dubbin. 
20  bottles  of  Chutney  (10  Bengal,  10  Major 
Grey). 

4  pound  tins  veterinary  vaseline. 

6  1 -pound  tins  castor  sugar. 

6  Knight's  patent  tin  openers. 
24  tins  asparagus  tips. 
24  tins  Black  Leicester  mushrooms. 

6  large  bottles  Pond's  Extract. 
12  10-yard  spools  Z.O.  surgeon's  tape,  1  in.  wide. 

4  bottles  Worcestershire  sauce. 

6  tins  best  mustard. 
12  dish  towels. 

THREE  CASES  CONTAINING  CANDLES,  PLASTER  OF  PARIS 
AND  THE  FOLLOWING  TABLEWARE: 
12  white  enamel  plates,  light  weight. 
12  white  enamel  dinner  plates. 

3  white  enamel  vegetable  dishes,  medium  size. 

6  one-pint  cups  (mugs). 

6  white  enamel  oatmeal  dishes. 

6  cups  and  saucers. 
12  extra  saucers. 

261 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

Of  that  collection  of  food,  only  two  boxes  were  un- 
touched when  we  came  out  of  Uganda.  We  were  well 
pleased  with  the  assortment  and  the  Danish  butter  and 
Ideal  milk  were  exceptionally  good.  Some  of  us  ate 
our  tinned  butter  and  milk  by  preference,  even  when  we 
could  have  fresh  milk  and  butter  at  the  posts.  Another 
time  we  should  want  more  coffee,  and  add  oil  and  vine- 
gar to  the  lists;  we  should  want  more  of  the  Edam  and 
less  of  the  tinned  cheese,  less  drippings  and  beans  and 
omit  the  mushrooms  altogether.  Going  into  the  Congo 
again  it  would  be  well  to  bring  in  some  tinned  fruits; 
in  Kenya  Colony  on  the  East  Coast,  these  are  usually 
obtainable  from  Indian  venders.  In  the  Congo  we 
were  always  able  to  obtain  chickens  and  eggs  from  the 
natives  and,  almost  invariably,  bananas ;  our  table  from 
time  to  time  knew  green  corn  and  fresh  tomatoes, 
onions,  leeks,  cabbages,  peas,  beans,  marrows,  potatoes, 
both  white  and  sweet,  pineapples,  oranges,  papayas, 
mangoes,  limes,  strawberries,  and  gooseberries. 

MEDICINES 

Our  medicine  kit  was  a  Burroughs  and  Wellcome 
medicine  case,  supplemented  with  ample  oxide  adhesive 
plaster,  bandages  and  hypodermic  syringe  in  case  of 
wounds  and  blood  poison.  Iodine,  quinine,  and  adhesive 
tape  are  essentials.  A  dental  kit  is  advisable,  made 
up  of  the  simplest  remedies  and  amalgam,  put  up  by 
one's  own  dentist — and  it  is  an  excellent  idea  to  have 
one  of  the  party  spend  an  hour  with  a  dentist  imbibing 
first  aid  to  the  aching. 

262 


LISTS  AND  EQUIPMENT,  ETC. 

CAMERAS 

Mr.  Akeley's  equipment  was  elaborate,  and  included 
two  Akeley  motion  picture  cameras,  one  being  "The 
Gorilla,"  a  stereoscopic  camera,  a  Graflex  camera,  and 
a  dark  room  and  equipment  for  developing  negatives 
and  making  motion  picture  film  tests  in  the  field.  Mr. 
Bradley  used  a  Graflex  plate  camera  of  Mr.  Akeley's, 
and  Miss  Miller  and  I  had  each  a  3  A  Kodak.  Mine  in- 
explicably collapsed  in  the  middle  of  a  film  in  Uganda. 
Miss  Hall  used  a  Brownie.  Our  films  were  brought 
from  America  done  up  in  lead.  We  could  have  bought 
them  at  Elizabethville  but  no  one  ought  to  depend  upon 
the  chance  of  getting  the  right  film  at  the  last  moment. 
Xeither  our  plates  nor  films  suffered  any  deterioration. 
The  plates  are  extra  trouble  on  safari  but  the  results  are 
well  worth  it.  I  can  say  that  unqualifiedly,  not  having 
been  the  one  to  take  the  trouble !  For  quick  snaps  about 
camp  a  universal  focus  is  a  good  thing  to  have  at  hand. 
We  had  four  porters  carrying  plates  and  five  porters 
carrying  motion  picture  film. 

GUNS 

Mr.  Akeley  and  Mr.  Bradley  each  carried  a  Jeffery's 
.475,  two  rifles  which  had  already  made  one  trip  to 
Africa  with  Mr.  Stevenson  and  Mr.  McCutcheon.  The 
.475  is  a  heavy  double-barreled,  cordite  rifle,  of  tremen- 
dous stopping  power,  an  invaluable  thing  for  emergen- 
cies. The  men  endorsed  it  heartily.  Any  gun  of  that 
type  is  considered  too  hard  in  recoil  for  a  woman.  Mr. 
Bradley  used  an  extra  rubber  pad  on  the  gun  stock 

263 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

and  never  felt  any  lameness  although  he  fired  as  often 
as  twelve  times  on  some  days. 

Each  one  of  us  was  equipped  with  a  Springfield  army 
rifle,  with  sport  stock  built  to  order  and  special  Lyman 
sights.  Mine  was  directed  against  so  few  animals  that 
I  can  do  little  more  than  give  it  a  good  character  for 
the  times  when  I  needed  it — against  lions.  We  sup- 
plemented this  arsenal  by  the  purchase  of  a  16  gauge 
shotgun  at  Elizabethville. 

i 
CLOTHING 

My  outfit  for  safari  was  modeled  on  that  of  the  men. 
I  had  two  khaki  suits,  coats  and  knickers  with  loose 
knees,  an  extra  pair  of  riding  breeches  and  a  khaki  skirt. 
In  the  field  I  used  flannel  shirts,  but  on  the  march  I 
usually  wore  a  white  silk  or  heavy  crepe  blouse  with 
the  khaki  coat  and  knickers.  I  never  wore  a  spine  pad ; 
Alice  wore  hers  only  on  two  days.  I  had  a  belt,  two 
leather  pockets,  a  knife,  a  compass.  I  had  three  pairs 
of  leather  boots,  two  heavy,  hobnailed,  leather-lined 
and  one  of  softer  leather,  and  one  light  pair  of  rubber- 
soled  canvas,  which  were  very  useful,  especially  on  the 
bicycle.  I  wore  cloth  puttees,  of  which  I  had  three  pairs. 
I  had  eight  pairs  of  Jaegar  stockings,  four  heavy  and 
four  fine,  two  pairs  of  bicycle  stockings,  and  two  pairs 
of  long  bed  stockings.  I  wore  silk  underwear  except 
for  the  days  on  the  gorilla  mountains  when  I  wore  Jae- 
gar wool.  I  had  two  suits  of  warm  pajamas,  a  heavy 
sweater,  a  rain  coat,  a  pair  of  mosquito  boots,  soft, 
leather  topped  boots  for  camp  wear,  a  gray  pith  helmet, 

264 


LISTS  AND   EQUIPMENT,   ETC. 

and  the  usual  toilet  articles,  handkerchiefs,  writing  ma- 
terials, etc. 

Alice  wore  exactly  what  she  wore  in  Wisconsin  wilds 
— khaki  knickers  and  middies,  over  cotton  and  silk  un- 
derwear or  sometimes  over  the  lightest  weight  wool. 
Her  stockings  were  the  finest  and  softest  wool;  her 
boots  were  stout  elkskin  and  ponyskin,  and  she  wore 
canvas  leggings. 

The  field  outfit  was  simple.  The  lists  that  were 
really  appalling  were  for  the  rest  of  the  journey.  We 
had  to  plan  for  both  cold  and  heat.  For  the  voyage 
over,  one  wants  plenty  of  white  sport  things  and  eve- 
ning clothes.  Capetown  was  cold  enough  for  coats  at 
times,  but  generally  a  silk  frock  was  warm  enough.  On 
the  long  trip  north  on  trains  and  steamers,  I  found  that 
a  predominantly  dark  sport  skirt  and  a  dark  blue  silk 
sweater  with  white  blouses  were  useful.  All  through 
the  Congo  I  carried  one  air-tight  packed  with  the  eve- 
ning dresses  that  I  should  need  when  I  came  out  on  the 
East  Coast,  and  with  white  afternoon  wear  when  we 
struck  an  official  Boma.  Seven  dresses,  two  sports 
skirts,  four  blouses,  and  six  pairs  of  slippers  and  shoes, 
and  the  various  "undies"  lived  in  that  10  inch  by  14  by 
32  air-tight!  For  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in  evening 
gowns  I  recommend  lace  ones  and  heavily  beaded 
georgette — the  beads  weight  down  the  wrinkles.  But 
this  is  becoming  a  feminine  chapter. 

"DANGERS" 

Many  questions  have  reached  me  about  the  dangers 
of  an  African  trip.  I  can  only  say  that  except  for  the 

265 


ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

greater  distance  from  physicians  in  case  of  a  broken  arm 
or  leg  an  African  camping  trip  doesn't  seem  to  me 
more  dangerous  than  one  in  California  or  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  There  is  danger  from  sun,  but  not  if  you 
wear  your  helmet.  There  is  a  chance  of  fever,  but 
ordinarily  nothing  that  quinine  won't  take  care  of,  and 
the  immunity  from  colds  and  influenzas  and  the  con- 
tagions of  civilization  is  well  worth  having.  I  saw  only 
two  snakes  in  six  months  in  Africa;  one  was  dead,  and 
one  was  an  infant.  Neither  was  harmful.  We  had  to 
go  out  and  hunt  hard  for  all  the  dangers  that  we  had — 
elephants  and  lions  and  gorillas.  These  can  easily  be 
avoided  by  any  one  who  wants  to  see  the  country  and  is 
not  anxious  for  combat.  The  natives  along  the  line  of 
march  we  found  peaceful,  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  would  have  been  much  chance  of  trouble  even 
among  the  insurrectionists  for  they  are  not  in  a  state  of 
violent  insurrection  but  merely  hold  aloof  from  the 
white  man's  rule. 

With  time  and  money  and  health  any  one  can  see 
Africa.  To  see  the  hidden  Africa,  the  wild  Africa,  that 
swiftly  vanishing  savage  land,  takes  more  time  and  a 
little  more  money,  a  passion  for  exercise  and  an  en- 
thusiastic digestion.  Our  experience  certainly  showed 
that  with  these  and  with  good  care,  not  only  men  but 
women  and  a  little  child  might  go  safely  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  Continent. 


INDEX 


Albertville,  48. 
Antelope  (gazelles),  254. 

Karisimbi,  122. 

Kenya  Colony,  199,  248. 

Pet,  88. 

Ruindi  Plains,  177,  187. 

Situtunga,  240,  241. 
Ant  hills,  42. 
Ants,  safari,  64,  65. 

Baboons,  200,  201. 

Baganda,  230. 

Bamboos,  108,  223. 

Bark  cloth,  201,  202. 

Barns,  T.  Alexander,  81. 

Baron  Dhanis,  51. 

Baskets,  92. 

Batiga,  230. 

Batwa,  136,  137,  138,  139,  140. 

Belgian  Administration,   217, 

218. 

Bicycles,  59,  60,  173,  188,  190. 
Big  Game,  dangers  of,  168,  169. 

on  Ruindi,  199. 
Birds,  238,  239. 
Borassus  palms,  44. 
Boys,  characteristics  of,  166, 
166,  228,  243,  244. 

costumes  of,  143. 

discharge  of,  144. 

payment  of,  41,  162. 

relations  to,  166,  167. 


Bubonde,  102. 

Buffalo,  dangers  of,  168,  169, 
206. 

hunting,  208,  209,  210,  211. 

on  gorilla  mountains,  114. 

on  Ruindi,  206,  207. 
Bukavu,  73. 
Bulawyo,  32. 

Bunyoni,  Lake,  223,  224,  225. 
Burton,  51. 

Camp  life,  61,  62,  63,  157. 
Cannabalism,  possible  case  of, 
70. 

former,  74. 
Capetown,  25,  26,  27. 
Cecil  Rhodes'  grave,  32,  33. 
Changugu,  72. 

Chaninagongo,  Mt.,  79,  95,  104. 
Chiefs,  greetings  of,  61,  221. 

ivory  of,  84. 

presents  of,  60. 

sociability  of,  82,  83. 

wives  of,  62,  84. 
Chimpanzees,  104,  133,  251. 
Christmas,  213,  214,  215. 
Cicatrization  marks,  45. 
Cob,  177. 

Cold,  119,  120,  156. 
Cooks,  157,  158,  159,  160,  163, 

164. 
Crocodiles,  46,  47,  48,  72. 


267 


INDEX 


Dances,    native,    74,    138,    141, 

249,  250. 
Daudi,  King  of  Uganda,  233, 

234. 
Deriddar,  Dr.,  79. 

Elephants,  dangers  of,  168,  169. 

hunting,  59,  65,  66,  200,  202, 
203,  204,  205. 

presence  of,  44,  108,  205. 
Elizabethville,  38,  39. 
Entebbe,  238. 
Equipme«t,  cameras,  263. 

camp,  258,  259,  261. 

clothing,  264,  265. 

food,  259,  260,  262. 

guns,  263,  264. 

medicine,  262. 

Fever,  77,  79,  242. 

Filed  teeth,  70,  74. 

Fire  sticks,  202. 

Flies,  61. 

Food,  in  the  Congo,  46,  62,  80, 

81,  141,  142,  161. 
Forests,  on  gorilla  mountains, 

114. 
Freetown,  14,  16, 17. 

Gavial,  48. 
Gazelle,  254. 
Giraffe,  254,  255. 
Goma,  78. 

Gorilla,  band  of,  123,  124,  125, 
133. 

beds,  128,  133. 

difficulties  of  seeing,  81,  109. 

Du    Chaillu's   description   of, 
4,  105. 

equatorial,  104. 


Gorilla    (Con«.) 

food  of,  131. 

forests  of,  114. 

hunting,   106,   107,   108,   109. 

killed  by  Mr.   Bradley,   115, 
116,  117. 

lack  of  information  about,  4. 

meat,  121. 

necessity  for  preservation  of, 
132. 

Prince  of  Sweden's  expedition 
for,  104. 

raids  by,  at  Katana,  75. 

raids  by,  at  Walikali,  76. 

shot  by  Mr.  Barns,  99,  100. 

tracks,  106. 
Groote  Schur,  28. 
Grotzen,  Count,  71. 

Hail,  147. 

Hairdressing,  native,  45. 
Hippopotamus,  45,  85,  174,  248. 
Housekeeping  in  the  Congo,  88. 

Ivory,  89,  90. 


Jackals,  195. 
Jiggers,  84,  85, 


Kabale,  226,  227. 

Kabalo,  48. 

Kaffir-Boom,  63. 

Kampala,  231,  232,  233,  242\ 

Karisimbi,  Mt.,  78,  114,  145. 

Katana,  75. 

Kavirondo  crane,  88,  89,  239. 

Kibati,  101. 

Kigoma,  51. 

Kikuyus,  249,  250. 

Kimberley,  30. 


268 


INDEX 


Kissenyi,  78,  87,  89,  92. 
Kitchen,  three-stone,   161,   162. 
Kivu,  Lake,  description  of,  72. 

discovery  of,  71. 

climate  of,  85,  86,  87. 
Kongoni,  248,  254. 
Koto-Koto,  60. 

Lava,  fields,  147. 

flow  of,  at  Kivu,  94,  95,  96. 
Leopards,  169,  170,  173,  175. 
Lions,  dangers  of,  169. 

daylight  hunting  of,  177,  178, 

179,  180,  181,  182,  183. 
grunting  of,  185,  188. 
hunted  by,  188,  189,  190,  191, 

192. 

night    hunting   of,    185,    186, 

193,  194, 195,  196,  197,  198. 

stories  of,  250,  251,  252,  253, 

254. 

Livingstone,  34,  61,  71. 
Lualaba  River,  42,  44,  45. 
Lulenga  Mission,  103,  104,  134, 
171. 

Madeira,  12. 

Maf  eking,  31. 

Mai  ja  Moto,  175,  217. 

Mail,  to  Congo,  87. 

Marabou,  205,  239. 

Mbarara,  231. 

M'fumbiro  Mountains,  95,  145, 

146. 
Mikeno,  Mt.,  78,  106,  107,  108, 

111,  112,  145. 

Missions.    See  White  Fathers. 
Mombasa,  255. 
Monkeys,  219. 
Mosquitoes,  61,  77. 


Motors,  231,  238. 
Mountains  of  the  Moon,  95. 
Musinga,  king  of  Ruanda/61,91. 
Mutesa,  tomb  of,  234,  235,  236, 
237. 

Nairobi,  248,  249. 
Naivasha,  Lake,  248. 
Nettles,  122. 
Nile,  sources  of,  95. 
Nyamlagira,  Mt.,  145. 

ascent  of,  146,  147,  148,  149. 

camp  on,  152,  153. 

cave  in,  152. 

crater  of,  149,  151,  152,  153, 
154,  155. 

eruptions  of,  146,  164,  155. 
Nyunde,  80,  93,  94. 

Otters,  225,  247. 

Papyrus,  223. 
Papaya,  62. 
Polygamy,  229. 
Pombe,  63,  160,  161. 
Porters,  clothing  of,  62. 

engaging  of,  68. 

fighting  amongst,  70. 

food  of,  62. 

status  of,  58. 

wages  of,  68. 
Posho,  62. 

Provisioning.     See  Equipment. 
Pygmies,  136,  137, 138, 139, 140. 

Quinine,  77,  80. 


Rains,  44,  86,  150,  172. 
Reed  buck,  177. 


269 


INDEX 


Rhinoceros,  dangers  of,  168, 169. 

none  on  Ruindi,  170. 
Rift  Valley,  Central  African,  95, 

145. 
Ruanda,  king  of,  61. 

kingdom  of,  78. 

inhabitants  of,  79. 
Ruchuru,  171,  216,  220. 
Ruchuru  River,  173,  174. 
Ruindi,  plains  of,  175,  177,  199, 

212. 

Ruindi  River,  175,  199,  201. 
Rusisi  Mountains,  71. 
Rusisi  River,  63. 

Sake,  76. 

Secretary  bird,  42. 

Serval  cats,  195. 

Sese  Islands,  240. 

Sharpe,  Sir  Alfred,  96. 

Silver  trees,  28. 

Situtunga,  240,  241. 

Sleeping  sickness,  240,  241. 

Smuts,  General  Jan,  16,  19,  20, 

21,  22,  23. 
Speke,  51,  237,  238. 
Spirillum  fever,  79. 
Stanley,  42,  51. 
Swahili,  82. 

Tanganyika,  Lake,  48,  49,  50,  51. 
Thanksgiving,  141,  142,  143. 


Tick  fever,  6f. 

Topi,  177. 

Tsetse  fly,  59,  240,  241. 

Uganda,  boundary  of,  220. 

march  through,  221,  228,  227, 
228. 

water,  scarcity  of,  in,  221,  228. 
Ujiji,  51. 
Usumbura,  51,  62,  53,  54. 

Victoria  Falls,  33,  34,  35. 
Victoria  Nyanza,  238,  247. 
Visoke,  78,  95. 
Volcanoes,  79,  95,  145,  146. 

Wahunde,  119. 

Wahuti,  90. 

Walikali,  76. 

Waregga,  73,  74. 

Wania-Bongo,  73. 

Water,  Scarcity  of,  228. 

Watussi,  90. 

White  Fathers,  at  Katana,  75. 

at  Lulenga,  103,  104,  136, 143. 

at  Nyunde,  80,  93,  94. 
White  Sisters,  94, 103. 

Yubile,  147. 

Zambezi,  35. 
Zebra,  241. 


C» 


PICTURESQUE  AND  INTERESTING 
REGIONS 

ON  THE  GORILLA  TRAIL 

By  MARY  HASTINGS  BRADLEY 

Besides  its  value  as  a  picture  of  a  great  gorilla  hunt, 
this  book  has  unusual  interest  because  of  the  presence 
of  the  author's  six  year  old  daughter  with  the  expedi- 
tion. 

CAMPS  AND  TRAILS  IN  CHINA 

By  ROY  CHAPMAN  ANDREWS  and  YVETTE 

BORUP  ANDREWS 

Explorations  along  the  frontiers  of  Tibet  and  Burma 
where  the  Blue  Tiger  lairs. 

ACROSS  MONGOLIAN  PLAINS 

By  ROY  CHAPMAN  ANDREWS 
A  naturalist's  experiences  in  China's  great  Northwest. 

VIVA  MEXICO 

By  CHARLES  M.  FLANDRAU 
The  life,  the  people,  and  the  country  of  Mexico. 

KIPLING'S  SUSSEX 

By  R.  THURSTON  HOPKINS 

The  quaint  and  picturesque  Old  World  county,  which 
forms  the  setting  of  some  of  Kioling's  finest  tales. 

THOMAS  HARDY'S  DORSET 

By  R.  THURSTON  HOPKINS 

The  countryside  and  the  country  folk  whose  influence 
is  woven  into  much  of  Thomas  Hardy's  work. 

TRAMPING  WITH  A  POET  in  the  ROCKIES 

By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM 

Graham's  hike  with  Vachel  Lindsay  through  Glacier 
Park  and  nearby  districts. 

MEMORIES  OF  OLD  RICHMOND 

By  ESTELLA,  VICOUNTESS  CAVE 

Tales  of  events  and  people  connected  with  a  once 
famous  Royal  Palace. 

JERSEY :  An  Isle  of  Romance 

By  BLANCHE  B.  ELLIOTT 

Historical  and  descriptive  account  of  a  fascinating 
island. 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

New  York  London 


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